


The Trades We Choose

by carmillasleatherpants (courtneyarnelle)



Series: Personal Assistant AU [1]
Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: AU, Eventual Smut, Explicit Language, F/F, Slow Burn, personal assistant au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-08
Updated: 2015-03-22
Packaged: 2018-03-11 05:08:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 50,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3315281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/courtneyarnelle/pseuds/carmillasleatherpants
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In November, Carmilla Karnstein turns 25. In November, she becomes the new chairman of Karnstein Industries. In November, Laura will part ways with her.</p><p>After November, she’d never see Carmilla Karnstein again.</p><p>(Personal Assistant AU)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

_“Childhood is a short season.”_ – Helen Hayes

* * *

 

 **Death had always seemed** intangible to you. You never expected to end up here. After all, why should an eight year old ever have to watch their father be buried?

Alexander Karnstein hadn’t gone quickly either. He’d struggled against his cigar enhanced lung cancer for two years before he’d reached stage four. His doctors, the best that money could afford, had told him continuing treatment would be useless and that he had, at best, three more months.

Alexander Karnstein wasn’t one to spend his last days lying on his back like an invalid when he had an entire company to run. So, he worked. He worked until each breath he took rattled him with violent coughs that left him completely immobile. Only then did he relinquish control of Karnstein Industries to his sister, Lilita Morgan Karnstein.

Lilita Morgan was the only eligible adult in the family alive to take control of the company, and keep it within the family as per the wishes of their founder. And, Alexander Karnstein trusted his sister with the company, and with the care of you, his only daughter, Carmilla.

You stand by your father’s coffin, your eyes red and strained from the tears that still shed from your eyes. Even though he’d been busy, your father had always been good to you. He’d always made as much time for you as he could, and he had been your only parental figure.

Standing there in your little black dress with a big white bow around your waist, curly hair tamed into something manageable, all poised and ready to look good for the cameras. You wanted nothing more than to go home and hug your father.

Who was lying cold and so clearly dead in the coffin next to you.

The thought cements itself back in your head and a fresh bout of tears build up behind your eyes. You try to discreetly wipe your eyes, pushing your large framed glasses aside, but cameras flash in your face and that overwhelmed feeling builds in your chest all over again.

Why did these people want to take pictures of you crying? Who were these people at your father’s funeral? You were sure your father had never spoken to most of them at any point. Why did you have to stand here and be watched by all these strangers?

A hand settles on your shoulder and stills your building sobs.

“Be strong, Carmilla.” You look up at meet the cool stare of a tall woman whom you’d only met once or twice. You can’t recall her name at the moment and that bothers you, so you ask.

“Who are you?”

“I’m your aunt. Don’t you remember me?” You shrug and the tall woman smiles kindly at you. “Well, we’ll fix that. You’re under my care now, Carmilla. Call me Maman, alright?”

You nod and the tall wo- _Maman_ kneels down to your level and pulls you into a hug that leaves you shocked for a moment. Then, you hug her back and cry into her shoulder.

Maybe, you wouldn’t be alone after all.

* * *

 

 **Maman was the mother** you never knew. Your birth mother had died during childbirth (Alexander Karnstein had never once believed it to be your fault. Truly believing that everyone has their time and no one was to blame for her death). Maman is good to you, and gives you anything you ask for. And, you love her.

With you being as spoiled as you are, you don’t complain when Maman fires your usual, nice and patient piano teacher after a month and hires someone much stricter. You don’t care at first, but you discover pretty quickly that Mr. Boorstin is mean.

Even though you do your best, you find piano is hard. Your hands are too small to stretch effectively to hit the keys. You try your hardest to move quickly to reach the lower and high notes of any given song.

Each time you mess up, your knuckles are struck with a ruler and you’re told to start over, regardless of how far into the song you’d gotten. The first time it happens, you don’t even make it through the first song before you’re crying and that only earns you a stern talking to about growing up.

“If you want to get anywhere, you have to be perfect. You need to be the best. If you want to learn the piano, you’re going to have to do it correctly or not at all. Do you understand?” Mr. Boorstin stares down at you with no sign of the slightest bit of sympathy in his eyes. You choke back a sob and he groans, packing his things.

“I don’t have time for this.” He continues. “Tell your mother to call me back when you’re done crying and ready to do this _right_.”

You hear his and Maman’s voices in the hallway, and try to calm your sniffling. Your knuckles hurt. Why did that man hit you like that? No one had _ever_ hit you… You want to cry all over again, but decide to wipe your eyes and try to tough it out.

Maman comes in moments later with a sweet smile on her lips. “Carmilla, sweetheart, what’s wrong?”

“That man, he hit me when I messed up. I don’t understand.” You rub your eyes and sniffle. Maman pulls a handkerchief from her pocket and wipes your face.

“Darling,” She breathes, the way she talks draws you in. _Makes_ you want to listen. You never want to hear that voice low with disappointment, or raised in aggravation directed at you. “That is just the way he is. Perhaps, try not to mess up. Then, you won’t be struck.”

You look at your hands, knuckles still red from the previous strike. It had hurt a lot, and that was motivation enough to get better. Maman telling you to try to stop messing up only fueled that resolve. So, you nod.

“Okay, no messing up.”

“Good girl.” Maman stands straight and leaves the handkerchief in your hands and you clutch it to your chest. “You’re going to be someone very, very important, my dear. You will need to be cultured, so you’ll be getting new tutors as well. Only the best.”

Maman goes on to explain her plan of bringing the best tutors money can buy to get you through your schooling, but it falls on ignorant ears. You don’t care what you have to do. You’ll do whatever Maman asks, because she took care of you. She was nice to you when no one else seemed to care. You would not disappoint Maman.

* * *

 

 **You spend hours alone** in that piano room, practicing your multitude of songs to perfection. Maman comes in every now and then to check on you. She gives you a smile that you read as approval of your hard work. And, the next time Mr. Boorstin comes, you don’t get hit.

Mr. Boorstin doesn’t praise you. He just moves onto a new, more difficult song. But, your knuckles remain unharmed. So, you count this as a victory.

* * *

 

 **You start oral and** vocal lessons two months after Maman had changed your piano teacher. You don’t mind these lessons as much. There’s something about singing that makes you feel a mild sense of freedom. The warm ups are fun, and your vocal coach actually gives you a smile when you improve.

You learn to speak properly and articulately. You learn not to stutter, and choose your words carefully. (Because being the head of a company, anything you say could be fuel behind a scandal for your competitors.)

So, you learn early on to watch what you say. You can’t be impulsive. You can’t allow anyone to get under your skin. You must be mature at all times, because you never know who’s really on your side. It’s a hard message to get behind, but you realize it’s necessary one and keep your complaints to yourself.

You start dance lessons at nine. You go to a private studio with several other young girls who give you dirty looks. You just ignore them and practice as much as you can. You didn’t care what these little _nobodies_ thought of you. You would be the best and make Maman proud of you. It was a difficult process, the other girls had years of experience ahead of you. But, you rehearse each dance to perfection.

Maman attends your dance recitals and sits up front, all regal and perfect posture. She doesn’t clap, but gives you occasional nods of approval. And, you find, that’s all you need.

Your tutors are strict, and you’ve grown a large amount hatred for all of them. You’re left handed and while your old tutors didn’t mind, your new ones force you to use your right hand despite the discomfort.

“It’s a defect.” They tell you. “An imperfection. Someone of your stature must be perfect.”

You don’t really get it, but you do what they say and learn to write with your right hand, even though it feels unnatural and your writing is disgustingly sloppy at first. Your tutors sneer at you, and berate your handwriting. Saying, “How can an heiress expect to sign papers with such tragic handwriting? It’s a real shame.”

Why wasn’t anything you did ever good enough? Why were you so sloppy? The word imperfect feels like it’s tattooed behind your eyelids.

So, you practice everything with every bit of time off you have in an effort to dispel the word.

* * *

 

 **Maman adopts Will when** you’re nine and seven months old. Will is six and a distant cousin, but still a part of the Karnstein lineage. An Eisen-Karnstein to be specific. His mother had been a Karnstein and his father an Eisen. The Eisen’s were a competitor in the oil industries and Will’s parents (You learn from listening to the help’s gossiping) had gotten married as an underground business deal.

Their marriage had been loveless and tough on both parties. Will was born as the heir apparent to Eisen Co. and had been sent to live with you and Maman, because neither of his parents wanted to make time for their son. Maman had been more than happy to take on the responsibility of raising Will.

He’s sweet at first, then his mischievous streak emerges. You figure this was his way of getting attention, knowing that he had been lacking it. So, you play with him when you can because you know how it feels to be alone and to feel like no one cares. And, Will really does grow on you.

You eat your meals together, sitting on opposite sides of a long table. You help him get rid of the vegetables he doesn’t want to eat, and you’re not really that discrete about throwing them away. But, the housekeepers don’t say anything.

Will doesn’t mind your teasing either, attached to your hip because you were the only one to give him any real attention for the first few years he’s living with you.

* * *

 

 **You discover your interest** in drawing at ten. You’d been watching a bird while you were studying and started sketching the small creature onto what was supposed to be your notes. The bird was a pretty pale grey color, small with a short beak. Its head twitched as it sat on the window sill and when it flew away you were admittedly disappointed.

You looked down at the sketch and smiled. You’re proud of this drawing, and you stand quickly to show it off to Maman.

She wasn’t amused.

You’d been upset by her lack of enthusiasm, but Maman said you should have been working on your schoolwork rather than making silly doodles.

You feel wronged by this. You’d finally found something you were _actually_ interested in, but because _Maman_ didn’t like it you wouldn’t be allowed to continue to do it.

You go behind her back and ask one of the housekeepers to buy you a sketchbook. And because they’re supposed to do as you ask, they do. You spend your nights drawing anything and everything that comes to mind under your blankets with a small flashlight.

And, to satisfy Maman into thinking you’ve set aside your drawing, you take up the violin.

* * *

 

 **Around the same time,** Maman has you start to attend parties with her to “keep up appearances.” You’re not the same girl who had been sobbing at your father’s funeral. You were growing and you were maturing. You were becoming exactly the kind of person someone would expect to lead a company in the future. Maman was molding you and she wanted to show that off to the world, you both did.

“Your job is to make friends with the other young men and ladies.” Maman tells you. “Make them love you and want to be you. They should be your associates, and they should be jealous of you.”

You follows those instructions to the letter. At each party you attend, you find someone around your age and become friends with them for the night. They always ask that you keep in touch, but you never do.

Except for Ell. Ell was different. Her name was Elleanor Hall, though she went by Ell. When you’d introduced yourself to her and started talking, you were actually interested for some reason. The little blonde had been shy at first, but she’d opened up quickly to you and you actually liked her.

This time, the friendship wasn’t a lie.

You keep in touch with Ell. Her father owned a large amount of mini golf branches across America and made his money through that. Ell didn’t like golfing much. You’d never tried it.

But, you think, maybe you might try.

* * *

 

 **You’re eleven when you** start your French lessons. Maman says that knowing another language will allow you to branch out and be more appealing to other countries, like their current branches in England and Germany. The company was working on establishing a permanent branch in France, which is where you learning the language came in.

You’re not really sure why, but you’re starting to feel more and more apathetic towards everything. You have an exuberant amount of lessons to attend, tutors to listen to, and instruments to practice. But, you don’t care for any of it.

You keep this to yourself, mainly because you don’t feel the need to stir up any trouble. You receive nothing but praise now from _everyone._ You’re told again and again how smart and beautiful you are by people who are strangers whose faces are a blur.

You also find your glasses are starting to be a bit of a nuisance. You don’t tell anyone this information either.

No, you’ll deal with it.

You have to.

* * *

 

 **When you’re twelve, Maman** offers to get you contacts to replace your glasses. You eagerly agree to it. You can tell Maman is thrilled by this decision by the slight upward twitch of her lip that breaks her stoic façade (a façade that you had adopted), telling you that you’d look a lot older and professional without those glasses on your face.

You keep in touch with Ell as much as you can. It’s mostly through short phone calls and, by the time you’re twelve, emails. Ell has become your outlet, and your closest and only true friend. (Will was too young to be any real help with anything, as much as you did love him.)

Along with your secret drawer of filled sketchbooks (you’d really been improving, you’d kept that drawing of that bird as a reminder of how far your self-taught skills had come), Ell was one of the only things you’d chosen for yourself in your life. So, you treasure the both of them.

* * *

 

 **You realize you have** a crush on Ell when you’re thirteen. You don’t know how to feel about the warmth in your chest when you speak. But you can’t deny that it’s there. And, you don’t.

You find yourself smiling for hours after talking to her and you’re drawn to her a lot more than you’d ever admit. Ell was a ray of sunlight in the mundaneness of your life. Ell was a burning fire in your heart that you don’t want to ever be put out.

You tell Maman that you think you have a preference girls mostly in confusion about your feelings. And, Maman tells you, “Well, sweetheart. That’s perfectly fine. But, these… _girls_ you may fall for, you never know what their angle is, why they’re _really_ talking to you. You shouldn’t trust your heart with them. Someone of your position can be manipulated by these women who just want you for your money. You understand?”

You _don’t_ understand. You don’t see why that would matter to anyone. Why money would influence anyone. You nod and say you do anyways. Regardless of what Maman says, you knows that’s not Ell. Ell likes you for you. That’s all that matters.

* * *

 

 **You start dating Ell** when you’re fifteen. Maman knows of the relationship and you know that she doesn’t approve, but you can’t bring herself to care. You had kissed her at sunset while you were with her at a party neither of you really wanted to attend. You’d sneaked off and sat talking in the house’s garden. And as the sun started to set, you’d leaned in and gave her a soft, innocent peck on the lips.

Ell had been stunned for a short moment, and you’d thought maybe you’d just messed up, then she leaned in and kissed you back. It had been nice. And short. And you both laughed afterwards glad to be free of the burden of wondering how the other felt about them.

* * *

 

 **When you’re seventeen, you** think you might be in love with Ell. Your relationship with her had been all innocent kisses and hidden dates, until a few weeks ago when you’d gone over to her house. It was smaller than yours, but it was easier to have privacy there. And, you’d had sex with her for the first time.

You honestly do think you might be in love with her.

Will likes to tease you about your relationship, but you can tell he’s happy for you. He’s been given your old tutors, and you helped him with his schoolwork because you remember how difficult everything had been.

But, now you’re actually kind of happy.

* * *

 

 **A week before your** eighteenth birthday, at a charity gala, Ell breaks up with you. It’s completely out of nowhere (in your opinion), and you don’t understand why she’s doing this.

“I don’t understand why you’re breaking up with me.” You tell her, and she shakes her head.

“This wasn’t a permanent thing.” Ell tells you quietly. She won’t meet your eyes and you can hear the slight quiver in her voice. “I—I just wanted to have a little bit of fun while we were still young.”

“For almost three years.” Ell licks her lips and rubs her nose, turning away from you. And, you know she’s lying.

“I—You were sweet and nice. I didn’t want to hurt you, but we can’t keep this up anymore. This needs to end.” You can feel your heart shattering and confusion turns to anger.

“You’re lying.”

“I’m not.” Ell’s voice hardens now, and her fists clench by her sides. You’re pissed off now, because she’s definitely lying. You’d learned how to read body language. She was too defensive and you can’t even look at her anymore. You turn your back on her and start to walk away.

“Fine. Don’t you dare come near me again.” You hiss, and you walk a little faster. Once you’ve turned the corner, you find yourself running. You find Maman and tell her you’re tired and you want to leave. Maman raises an eyebrow, but agrees to your request, saying the atmosphere tonight isn’t as glamorous as she’d hoped it would be.

So, you find Will and leave.

You don’t cry. You can feel the stinging behind your eyes like you might want to, but you refuses to shed a tear. You should have listened to Maman all those years ago and not pursued a relationship with Ell. You feel torn apart like a piece of garbage and your heart feels like it’s thudding dully in your chest. You never want to feel like this again.

Something had happened to Ell that made her break up with you, Ell had been lying. You _know_ she was. But, that doesn’t stop your chest from feeling like it’s caving in. Ell had been your first _everything._ You hope you never have to speak to her again.

You throw all the sketches you’d made of Ell into your fireplace. You were not going to cry. _You were not going to cry._

On your eighteenth birthday, after the extravagant party held for the occasion, you have your first one night stand with some girl whose name you don’t remember in the morning. You end up finding that fucking and forgetting is a lot easier than loving and longing. But, it does nothing to heal the scars left by Ell.

* * *

 

 **A few months later,** you leave your uptown estate for London. Maman say that you leaving to study business at Oxford, a renowned school, would improve your reputation and gain a good amount of publicity for the company. The daughter and heiress to Karnstein Industries attending Oxford, a school which only a handful of American students get into? It was definitely more than newsworthy in your world.

So, it was announced you would be attending Oxford and letters of congratulations flooded in from hundreds of people you knew and thousands that you didn’t. You were just happy to be getting away for a few years. You were ready to be free and not anyone breathing down her neck. Although, that dream was killed quickly because, a bodyguard named Brody Kirsch is hired to guard you while you are in London to make sure you aren't kidnapped and held for ransom. At least that’s what you’re told, but you know it’s just to make sure someone is monitoring you.

Kirsch was a bit of an idiot in your opinion. And, you find it very easy to ditch him. When you gave him the slip the first time, he’d called you in a panic.

“Why would you do that? I could get in serious trouble if anything happened to you.” Kirsch complained.

“Relax. People will only think I’m important if _you’re_ always there following me around. Just wait back at my room. I’ll be back later tonight.”

“This is so not a good idea.”

“Trust me. Give me a bit of freedom. This is the only chance I have to be a normal person.” Kirsch is silent for a moment before he answers.

“This is still not a good idea, your mother would fire me and ruin my reputation as a guard for sure if she knew but… Fine. Just be careful. Ladies shouldn’t wander around alone at night.” You roll your eyes, but tell him you will and to go out and enjoy London. So, Kirsch goes out and enjoys himself when he can. There are many days where he does hang around you, pretending to be a student when he’s really just making sure nothing happens to you.

Those days aren’t too often, so you deal with it. If not only because it makes Kirsch feel better about the days he leaves you alone to do what you want.

You spend your weeks studying and doing your schoolwork to keep your grades up so that Maman wouldn’t send anyone else to check up on you and Kirsch. You spend the weekends drinking as much expensive wine and cheap beer as your liver can take and sleeping with as many English girls as you can.

You find yourself calling the girls cute nicknames because it makes them feel special. Though you’re only doing it because you choose not to remember their names after they’ve introduced themselves to you. And, you develop a duel reputation on campus.

_“That American girl who can pull any girl she lays her eyes on, but somehow manages to remain near the top of the class.”_

* * *

 

 **You return home when** you’re twenty four having earned your Graduate’s Degree. Maman and Will attend the graduation ceremony and bring you home with them. Will was twenty one now and had started attending school in Germany, but the two of you never visited each other and it was your first time seeing him since you’d left home six years ago.

Will seemed different at first. Not just in size (he’d grown a few inches taller than you and he must have been working out because he looked like a perfect beefcake.) He stood by Maman’s side at all times and he didn’t smile at all. And, you feel guilty at first for running off to England and hardly making any contact with him.

That is, until Maman leaves you and him alone in the foyer of your home in New York, and he turns to you with a shit eating grin and purrs, “Welcome home, kitty.”

Which, might be the most aggravating thing anyone’s ever said to you _ever_.

“Thanks, Mama’s boy.” You sneer and he laughs, opening his arms for a hug. You wrap your arms around him and hug him tight. Your little brother hadn’t changed at all.

* * *

 

 **You go up to** your room after catching up with Will. You learn he was finishing out his Junior year at the University of Mannheim. You apologize for not keeping in touch, but he’s unbothered, figuring you were enjoying yourself and the freedom university away from this business world had given you. You really had missed him.

You room had been mostly untouched (though it had clearly been kept spotless.) You drop the duffle bag, that you had insisted on carrying yourself, to the ground. All that’s inside are your sketchbooks, a couple dozen of them filled with drawings you’d done in your rare spare time. You pull out your old sketchbooks from your drawer and flip through them.

You know that while a lot has changed, a lot of things would remain the same.

* * *

 

 **Maman tells you the** day after you return home that because you were to become one of the chairs of the board for Karnstein Industries when you turned twenty five, you were going to need to hire a personal assistant to take care of your daily needs. She tells you that you would be learning a lot more about the inner workings of the company and that you didn’t need to be tasked with little things you could just as easily hire someone else to do.

That day, Maman takes you into the Karnstein industries executive building in Manhattan for the first time. It’s bustling with employees. People quiet when you walk in and stare. You give them relatively blank looks, and then decide to ignore the curious looks, following Maman into an elevator. It takes you up to the 30th floor and she leads you into a large empty office that you’re told will belong to you.

“You’ll be working from here. By next week, your office will be ready with any other furniture you decide you’d like aside from this chair and desk for your use. You’re free to do as you’d like with it, but for right now,” Maman lays down a pile of manila folders with names on the front, “ you need to pick an assistant. These are the applications we’ve received, so you’ll have to pick one from these.”

“Fine.” You says and Maman nods.

“Take your time, dear. But don’t take too long. You start working next Monday.”

“Alright.” Maman then turns and leave. You sift through the profiles lazily. Each one contains a candid picture of each of the applicants like they’d been taken through a street camera while the person was walking along the streets. You think for a moment that that’s pretty sketchy, but you push that thought aside. You take a brief ten minutes to pick one and have the first person who passes your to-be office run it up to Maman so that she can hire the girl for you.

Your first assistant quits within the first two weeks. You knew you’d been hard on the girl but you were stressed out. And, seriously, how hard was it to make a proper coffee? So, you’d taken your frustrations out on the girl and finally brought her to tears. She’d quit in a dramatic mess of snot, tears, and something along the lines of “worst person ever.”

You didn’t really care, but Maman was aggravated.

“Two weeks?”

“It isn’t my fault if she couldn’t handle the tasks this job demanded of her.” Maman sighs and places a hand on your shoulder that makes you stiffen. For some reason, her touch now felt like venom to you.

“Sweetheart, you’re going to have to be nicer to your assistants. They spend their entire day following you around.”

“I know.” You respond, sighing and running your hands through your hair. “I’m just stressed.”

Maman’s hand slides across your back to your other shoulder and she squeezes it firmly.

“I understand. Pick out another assistant and let’s try again.”

“Fine.” You agree.

* * *

 

 **You blow through eleven** personal assistants within four months. At first, it had been on accident, you snapping at them for the littlest things when you were in a bad mood. With time though, it had become a sort of game for you to see how quickly you could get them to quit. You varied between male, female and non-binary assistants, testing how long it would take to get them upset or mad enough to tell you off in their own choice words and quit.

Usually the males and non-binaries were more resilient, dealing with you for a few weeks before they called it quits. The longest to stay was a female, and she stayed for a month. The shortest someone stayed was a male, and he quit within two days.

He was a misogynistic asshole and had told you, “I don’t need to take this from a woman. I don’t care how hot or rich she is.”

Maman wasn’t as amused with your game as you were. She’d had their hiring team send out a notice that they were looking for new applications because your choices were running thin. New applications came in, not as many as was hoped (That was your fault, word must have been spreading that you’re a terrible boss.) As you flip through them, only one catches your eye.

“Laura Hollis.” You says aloud to no one. You’re looking at the woman’s profile with an involuntary smirk. She was a tiny dirty blonde with bright brown eyes. She was smiling in her candid picture. According to her application, she’d graduated just a two months ago from college with a journalism degree. She had no prior experience in being a personal assistant.

You laugh to yourself, what was she thinking?

This job would destroy her. So, naturally, you had to hire her.


	2. Worth It

_“The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.”_  – Carl Jung

 

* * *

 

 

**There really is a**  huge difference between hearing the job market for college graduates is pretty much nonexistent and actually living it. For whatever reason you’d thought this wouldn’t apply to you. You’d gone to school under the journalism field and graduated Summa Cum Laude. You had been through plenty of internships with professional news stations  _and_ you had prior experience in front of a camera, so you’d been sure you would be hired when you graduated.

You’d been wrong. And because working on minimum wage was not going to keep an apartment in Brooklyn, (regardless of how shitty the apartment was) you’d had no choice but to give up your cozy abode and move back in with your father.

Matthew Hollis was more than happy to have his daughter home and you really did love your father. You did. But the freedom you’d gotten living on your own, even though you hadn’t _really_ been that far from home, had been a blessing. Your father meant well, but he was entirely too overprotective.

Furthermore, you needed a job. A real job that would make you a  _real_ and  _decent_  amountmoney. Your best option for that was to ask Lafontaine. Lafontaine was 5’4, the type that's all brains and witty remarks. They were your best friend. You felt bad asking them to help you with your job hunting, but Lafontaine was crazy tech savvy and could do this a lot easier than you could.

Lafontaine, of course, had been glad to offer their services. They asked you to meet them for coffee at Starbucks, more than aware of your (which was absolutely non-existent regardless of what they may try to tell you) addiction. You meet them there on a Sunday, and they already have your Caramel Frappuccino sitting waiting for you with their laptop open, their fingers dancing across the keyboard.

“I’m so sorry I’m late.” You tell them breathlessly. Yes, it was way more environmentally friendly to ride a bike around the city, and also it saved a girl a lot of time from sitting in the devastating traffic as well as money on gas. But by the same token, it could get seriously tiring when you were struggling to make it to a Starbucks on time when you’d told your friend you’d be there 10 minutes ago.

“I knew you would be. Don’t worry about it.” Your cheeks flush at the thought that you being late for things was becoming an expectation. You sit down next to Lafontaine and scoot your chair  _right_ next to them.

“Anyway,” You start to change the topic. “How are things with Perry?” Lafontaine’s fingers pause from flying across their laptop for a moment at the mention of their girlfriend, before they go back to typing whatever they were working on, you don’t look at the screen, respecting their privacy.

“We’re great actually.” They save and close their document, before turning to you. “You know, I thought it might be weird. I mean, I’ve known her for like, ever. I thought us being together romantically might be a bit awkward. But, it feels like we’ve been dating for years. It feels so right. Do you know what I mean?”

“I do.” You tell them. What they and Perry had was kind of something you longed for. You’d seen, for years, the lovesick looks Lola Perry (your floor don your first year of college) and Lafontaine had tossed at each other when they thought no one was looking. You never felt the need to push them to get together, you figured one day they’d open their eyes a little and realize the both of them shared the same affections for one another anyways.

It had worked out for them, too. Their relationship was honestly adorable. You felt admittedly pathetic wishing someone looked at you like they looked at one another. You’re sure you’re not jealous, you’re just in love with the idea of someone caring for you that much… How could you  _not_ want something like what Perry and Lafontaine had?

They were now living together in the city. Lafontaine working on their degree at Columbia University, and Perry working as an elementary school teacher. They worked well together.

“So, what kind of job were you thinking about?” Lafontaine asks, effectively snapping you away from your thoughts.

“Oh, um, anything really. It doesn’t matter. I just need something that pays well.” You take a sip of your drink, and it’s  _perfect_. You hum in appreciation and nod a thanks to Lafontaine who just smiles.

“Alright. I’ll start by searching by wage then.” They type something into their laptop and wait for a moment and then their eyebrows rise. “Interesting.”

“What?”

“How do you feel about personal assisting?”

“Like being the personal assistant to someone with, like, really any aspect of someone’s life?”

“That’s what personal assisting is, L.”

“It depends on who I’d be working for.” You tell them and Lafontaine clicks on something, then turns their laptop towards you.

“Have you ever heard of Karnstein Industries?”

What kind of question was that?  _Had_ you? Karnstein Industries has branded nearly every kind of personal health product. It was small things like chapstick, cough syrup, contacts, lotion, etc. But, all those little things people buy really add up. Karnstein Industries was  _loaded._ “I don’t live under a rock.” You tell them with a smile and a small nudge, they just roll their eyes before continuing on.

“Well their heiress, Carmilla Karnstein, is looking for new applications to be her new personal assistant, just until she’s ready to take her position on her birthday in mid-November, though.”

“That’s eight months from now.” You muse, actually interested at first. Then you shake your head at their suggestion. “I don’t have any experience being a personal assistant though. Why would they even  _look_ at me?” You sigh and put your head down on the table.

“Well they won’t with  _that_  attitude. Come on, Laura. You never know, they might be into rookies. What happened to all that enthusiasm you used to have?"

“It died with the job market.” You deadpan and they snort bemusedly beside you.

“You’re being dramatic. Here just—Just apply and if they don’t hire you, they don’t hire you. What harm can trying do?”

You know they’re right, Lafontaine always knew what they were talking about. So you sit up straight and push your hair out of your face.

“Let me see that application then.”

“Wait hold on.” They scroll down and frown to themselves, pulling the laptop away from you.

“What’s wrong?”

“Well I just wanted to see how the reviews of the company looked and— Oh."

“Oh?”

“There’s a lot of bad reviews here, L. Maybe we should look at something else and not even bother with this one.”

“What? That’s ridiculous. Let me see.” Lafontaine turns their laptop towards you and you scroll down through the comments and see ten or so angry reviews made in just the last four months. You only read one of them in its entirety.

‘ _Don’t take this job!! Carmilla Karnstein is a horrible person to work for. No one cares what she does because of how important she is, and the money is good. But, it’s not worth how she treats you! Do not apply! You’ll be thankful you didn’t.’_

The rest of the reviews are similar, and you swallow the bile rising to your throat. Then you shake your head. You’d taken a statistics class. You knew that only people who were  _really_  upset with something usually answered voluntary response surveys like this one and wrote reviews, but you also knew they weren’t really reliable opinions.

(Also your father’s urging for you to make your own opinions about people may be lurking in the back of your mind.)

“Do you still want to apply?” Lafontaine asks attentively, trying to read your expression. "I mean, I wouldn’t blame you now. With these shitty reviews, it’s not exactly ideal…”

“No. I’m going to apply. They might not even hire me anyways, right? What can just applying hurt?” They shrug beside you and you click back into the application. “I’m going to do this.”

* * *

 

 **You don’t have a** choice but to take a waitressing job. You’d avoided it as long as you could, but after three days of nothing despite your follow up calls (minus Karnstein Industries because yikes that was that a long shot). The  _“NOW HIRING”_  sign hanging outside IHOP had been looking more and more appealing as days passed.

The thing is, you really hated waitressing. There we so many disgusting tourists in the place who were just stopping by the IHOP because the prices were slightly cheaper than in Manhattan, and generally they didn’t have any respect for anyone. The regulars weren’t any better. If you had any other promising options, you’d quit in a heartbeat. But, the sad reality is, you just  _don’t_.

Two Sundays after you’ve started working at IHOP, you get a phone call from an unknown number. You’d just gotten up and started to get ready for work, and you’re confused by the call. You can’t imagine who’d be calling you at seven AM on a Sunday morning, but you answer it with a polite, “Hello?”

“Is this Laura Hollis?” A voice asks and you straighten up immediately.

“Yes, who’s this?”

“Hi, Laura. Can I call you Laura?” The person doesn’t give you a chance to respond and continues. “This is Elizabeth Anne Spielsdorf, the receptionist for Karnstein Industries. I’m calling about your application to be the personal assistant to Carmilla Karnstein.”

She pauses so you sputter out a, “Yes.”

“Well congratulations. Ms. Karnstein has selected you  _personally_.”

“Excuse me?” The receptionist is silent for a moment, then her polite attitude drops for a moment.

“Did you not understand, or are you just in shock?”

“I—Um—Shock. Sorry.”

“Right… Well like I said, Ms. Karnstein has personally picked you from the applications we’ve received and decided to hire you as her new personal assistant.”

“No interview or anything?”

“No, that's not necessary here. You’re currently employed somewhere now, correct?”

“Yes?”

“Well, not—” You hear a few clicks on what you think is a keyboard from the other line, and then Ms. Spielsdorf speaks again. “Anymore.”

“Wait, what?” Had she just quit her job for you? Was that possible? Was it even legal? This entire thing was really sketchy and it honestly sounds too good to be true.

“Congratulations, you’re now employed at Karnstein Industries. You’re expected here at nine AM sharp tomorrow morning for further details. Do you know where the building is?”

“I—No.” You admit. You hear a groan in her ear and blush. You’re a little embarrassed now, and you blame Lafontaine for this, because after all they were the one to convince you to apply to this high end job in the first place.

“Okay well, your address was in your application, so we’ll send a driver to pick you up. Just be ready at eight am. You can wear what you like. We’ll set you up with someone in wardrobe when you get here to fit you for your work clothes.”

“Wait, you guys are going to pick out what I wear?” Yep. Very, very sketchy.

“Am I going to have to repeat everything to you?” Ms. Spielsdorf asks, clearly irritated at all your questions.

“Sorry no. I got it. Eight am. Driver. Be read on time. The works.”

“Good. We’ll see you tomorrow then, Ms. Hollis.” And then, the line goes dead.

You don’t know if this is a dream come true, or your worst nightmare playing out right before your eyes. But you have one thing you need to do for sure. You call Lafontaine and Perry. They're happy for you, despite the fact that your phone call woken the both of them up.

You tell your dad when he wakes up and he’s excited for you, he is grateful to Karnstein Industries for all the products they’ve released and branded over the years that have made a handy first aid kit.

* * *

 

 **When you peek out**  of your window as a car pulls up your first thought is, ‘Wow this is probably the nicest car I’ll ever ride in.’

You don’t know much about cars. So if someone were to ask you more about the car, you couldn’t tell them much. But what you did know is that it was sleek, black and long. It didn’t have a single scratch or scuff on it. Hell, it was practically sparkling as it pulled up outside of your house at eight am on the dot.

You go outside and the driver steps out and opens the door to the back seat for you. You thank them and climb inside. You feel awkward in your jeans and white cardigan, rolled up at the sleeves with a black tank top underneath, because the driver is dressed in a fitted suit. But they give you a kind smile in the rearview mirror after closing the door behind you and getting back into the driver’s seat.

You honestly feel a little weird about this entire situation. This went against everything you’d been taught. Getting into some strange car and letting them take you wherever. This was so, so sketchy. At the same time though, you couldn’t deny the excitement bubbling in the pit of your stomach. This was beyond exciting. You felt like royalty being chauffeured around like this.

The car starts and you pull away from your home. You look out the window as the familiar streets go by and you watch as you pass over the Brooklyn Bridge into Manhattan. Traffic still sucks, but it’s not as bad as it could be this early in the morning. Your driver entertains your small talk which you’re grateful for. You’d have felt awkward sitting in complete silence.

You learn his name is Jacob Herring. You learn he’d just celebrated the fifteen year anniversary of the day he married his wife last week and that he’s been chauffeuring for Karnstein Industries for ten years. You learn that he really does love this job because he meets people like yourself and he really does love exchanging stories. You tell him how nervous you are about this job. He sympathizes with your situation and wishes you luck as you pull up to the front of Karnstein Industries.

The Karnstein Industries building is huge. You have to tilt your head all the way back to look up at it. It has a giant  _K_ on the front, which you think is a bit much, but you shake that thought from your mind as Jacob opens the door for you and offers a hand to assist you in stepping out. You take his hand and he dips his head to you wishing you luck once again.

You thank him and start up the stairs where a tall blonde is waiting for you. The blonde’s hair is up in a tight bun on the top of her head, her outfit wrinkle-less and she looks way too perfect to be real. Then, she speaks and you recognize her at the one who’d phoned you about the job.

“Laura Hollis?” She asks and you nod.

“That’s me.”

“Welcome to the main Karnstein Industries building. You can call me, Betty. I’m the main receptionist. I’ll usually be at the front desk so we probably won’t see much of each other except when you arrive in the mornings, but I’m going to take you to the third floor right now so that Natalie can discuss the details of your contract to us with you, alright?”

“Yep. Totally. Got it.” You tell her, and Betty’s lips press together. For a short moment she looks almost  _fearful._  You pale at the look on her face and she turns without another word to walk inside. You follow her a bit cautiously now because seriously what was that look?

You ride in silence in an elevator up to the third floor and Betty leads you to an office with an Asian woman sitting on other side of a desk typing something on her computer. Her eyes are narrowed in concentration so Betty knocks on the doorframe to get her attention. “Busy?” She asks.

“Not as busy as we will be in a few hours.” Natalie replies, and they share a tired look before Natalie looks at you. “Are you the new PA?”

“Yes.” Betty answers for you. “This is Laura Hollis. Laura, Natalie here will be getting you all settled with our company’s contract. So be sure to ask her any questions you might have. After this you’ll head down to wardrobe and meet Sarah Jane who will fix you up with a few outfits for your first week. Then from there you’ll meet Ms. Karnstein.”

Your head feels like it’s spinning from all this new information and you don’t even know what exactly what your job is going to be entailing you do. But you nod and Betty gives you an encouraging smile before exiting the room and shutting the door behind her. You turn back to Natalie who’s started typing onto her desktop again.

“Hold on one moment Ms. Hollis. You can go ahead and sit down. I just need to print out a copy of the contract for you and then we can start going through it in detail.”

“How far in detail?” You sit in the single chair across from Natalie, placed neatly in front of her desk.

“Well as far as you’d like. But I would personally recommend we go over  _everything_ just to ensure you’re made aware of all the rules of the company. We wouldn’t want to end up with a lawsuit on our hands, right?” Natalie laughs like it’s a joke and you laugh uncomfortably with her even though you’re more nervous than you’d been before. How much would you know about the company that if you goofed up, you could get  _sued_? Natalie turns in her chair and picks up the stack of pages, which you can’t really can’t count from where you’re sitting, and staples them together. Then she hands them to you.

“Well let’s get started.” Natalie scrolls on her desktop, then turns the screen towards you. “You can look here or on your printed copy it doesn’t really matter.” You pick up the printed copy to follow along but Natalie keeps the screen turned towards you. “Now, first of all, you have to understand you’ll be working in very close proximity with Ms. Karnstein. You’re to be with her at all times and do whatever she asks of you, which will always be within reason. If it’s outside of your comfort zone, which I don’t know why it would be since it will mainly be just coffee and note taking for her, you should tell her that and we can discuss it further. You can read the full extent of that section later or we can go in depth now.”

“I’m fine with reading it in a bit.” You tell her. Natalie nods.

“Very nice. The next big thing is that you’ll be attending some very confidential meetings with Ms. Karnstein. You might now be wondering, ‘Why would they let someone with no experience in the company attend such important meetings?’ Well the answer to that is, because Ms. Karnstein requires it. And if you reveal  _anything_ you learn,  _anything_  we will sue you for every cent you and your entire bloodline is worth due to the strict confines of this contract.” Natalie’s smiling, but your eyes are wide in disbelief. You understand why they would do that, but it’s a scary thought.

“Right, of course.”

“Next we have…”

* * *

 

 **It takes two hours**  to go through the entire thirty six paged contract and, regardless of how binding and controlling the entire thing is, you still sign. This job would provide you enough money to pay off a lot of your college debt, and it was too good a deal to turn down even with all the restrictions. Your contract will only last the next eight months, until Ms. Karnstein took on her position, then you would be released. However the confidentiality contract was binding for the rest of your life.

Natalie calls Sarah Jane up from the second floor and she’s down to get you within in a few minutes. You learn that Karnstein Industries’ entire second floor is dedicated to the fashion of the office. Each position had a particular ‘uniform’ they were expected to wear. You give the signed contract back to Natalie who shoots a thank you your way before pulling back up whatever she’d been working on before, and starts vigorously typing once more.

“Hi! My name is Sarah Jane.” She’s a few inches taller than you. Her mousy brown hair is shoulder length and in bouncy curls. Her makeup is done fantastically. She’s wearing a pale blue blouse and black dress pants, and her hand is extended towards you, her other arm holding a clipboard to her chest. You take her hand and shake it.

“Laura Hollis.” You tell her, and Sarah Jane smiles.

“Nice to meet you. I’ll be doing your measurements and getting you something to wear for today. By tomorrow the rest of your wardrobe will be completely ready. We work pretty fast here. One question though, would you prefer skirts or pants?”

“Um, skirts are good.” Laura decides and Sarah Jane circles something on her clipboard and then leads her into the elevator.

“Excellent.” She pushes the button to the second floor and makes you stand on the opposite side of the elevator from her. “Let’s see here. I think cool colors would work well for you. Maybe a yellow or orange here and there. Red would be a bit loud though.” Sarah Jane writes as she talks, tilting her head every now and then. “You have a very nice body by the way. Do you work out?”

“Um, well…” The most you do is yoga on Sundays. You don't particularly  _try_ to eat healthy. Of course, your father served you as many healthy meals as he could cook but you had an entire drawer of cookies hidden in your room.

“Hold that thought.” Sarah Jane tells you as the elevator doors open after your short ride down. She walks through without missing a beat. You follow after her as quickly as you can. “Welcome to the second floor. You’ll report here first thing every morning to get dressed and then you’ll be meeting Ms. Karnstein wherever she is and helping her with whatever she needs.”

The second floor is set up like a department store, with different set pieces all divided into different sections and all. A few people are scattered around the area looking at different outfits. There is an entire section cut off with an  _“EMPLOYEES ONLY”_ sign printed above it. Sarah Jane sees where you’re looking and starts to explain.

“In the employee section, we have lockers where your clothes for the next day will be held and the clothes you wear to the building today will be stored in there as well. You’ll learn everything is done pretty efficiently here at Karnstein Industries thanks to the renovations of our acting head, Lilita Morgan. Although I wouldn’t call her Ms. Morgan. She prefers to be called the Dean. I couldn’t tell you where that came from though. For right now though, you can follow me so I can get your measurements and get you your first outfit of the day.”

You only nod because so much information had been thrown at you in the course of a few hours and you don't even know if anything you say will come out articulately.

Sarah Jane drags you into a changing room and pulls a roll of measuring tape from her pocket. “Would you mind stripping down to your undergarments, or would that make you uncomfortable?” You can only imagine how your father would react to that. Nearly undressing completely in front of a stranger, but you just shake your head and start undressing.

Sarah Jane makes quick work of taking your measurements and tells you to sit down while she goes to fetch a few different blouses and a skirt for you to try on. It only takes her a few minutes to find a skirt, and ask you to try it on. You slide it on and Sarah Jane nods, telling you it looks great on you. You thank her and she turns back out of the dressing room. She tells you not to move as she leaves and you tell her you won’t.

But in all seriousness where would you even go?

You look in the mirror and see yourself as you always look when you put on a skirt, but Sarah Jane’s compliment had been sincere and you can’t help but feel good about yourself. You sit down on the bench in the dressing room and wait until Sarah Jane returns with a blue, yellow and light green blouse for Laura to try on.

You try on the yellow blouse first and Sarah Jane shakes her head, saying it was too loud. After a bit of debate, you go with a dark blue blouse to wear for today. Sarah Jane helps you button the thing up for whatever reason and tells you it’s really a better color for your first day. She starts to gush about the symbolism of the color blue, telling you that it would symbolize loyalty which would be good considering you’re new around the office.

Sarah Jane stands back and looks at you with admiration. She has one of her assistants bring you out a pair of black flats and she looks so proud of herself. “Are you ready to meet your boss now?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be.” You tell her. You actually do feel confident in such a well-fitting outfit, picked out by someone who seems to so clearly know what they’re doing. Sarah Jane makes a call up to someone she calls ‘Kirsch’ and then she tells you she’ll be taking you up to the thirtieth floor where you’d meet your boss for the first time.

In an instance, the confidence that you’d had a few minutes earlier is sapped away. You have no idea what to think of your boss, Ms. Karnstein. Those reviews were still lurking the back of your mind. And, yes, you know you shouldn’t let angry, ex-employees dictate your opinion of a person, and that you should give Carmilla Karnstein a chance to make her own first impression on you. But, it was hard with no one giving you a single hint.

Sarah Jane is babbling about something and you tune back in while you’re riding up in the elevator. “—is really rare. I mean how many other big businesses have a generally female dominated employment. I mean, we have a few guys around here, and of course a couple non binary people. But there is a lot of estrogen floating around in the office. And I just think that is so amazing. Don’t you?”

You nod and hum in agreement when you feel it’s necessary, but your thoughts wander again to your mystery boss who you’d be meeting in only a few minutes. You hadn’t even looked up any pictures of the woman just because you didn’t want to judge her based on her appearance from some magazine pictures or something. You're regretting that decision now, because you’d like to know something— _anything_ – about your boss.

The elevator dings and Sarah Jane immediately shuts her mouth and leads you through. The hallway splits off into a sort of intersection and Sarah Jane leads you straight forward. The individual offices seem to be on the left and right sides because there isn’t a single door through the hallway. Sarah Jane stops in front of a door with the name “ _C. Karnstein”_ printed on the front.

She knocks politely and a tall (Geez, really tall) man peeks out and looks at the both of them.

“Is this her?” He asks and Sarah Jane nods wordlessly. The man gestures for you to come in. “Well, come on in, Hollis.”

You nod and Sarah Jane leaves immediately, making your stomach knot. You step past the man who’s opened the door for you and manage to read the “ _B. Kirsch: Body Guard”_ printed on a badge attached to his suit. “Your new personal assistant is here.” Kirsch relays to a woman who’s got her back turned to you, nose deep in a book.

“Perfect.” She breathes and you’re, for lack of better word, entranced. There was something about the way she said that one word. Her voice… It was captivating. “Leave us, Kirsch.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.” He tries. She looks up from her book, but doesn’t turn to look at him.

“Kirsch.” She says sternly, which makes Kirsch sigh and dips his head.

“Fine. I’ll be right outside.” He turns and leaves, closing the door behind him. Ms. Karnstein closes the book and sets it on her desk before she turns to you. And, holy crap, she’s pretty. Not just pretty, she’s  _gorgeous._

Long, black curls and pale alabaster skin. She looks like if you hit her too hard, she’d shatter. Yet, the way her jaw was set told you that she can definitely handle herself. Carmilla Karnstein looked like she’d been sculpted by gods who’d taken every detail into account to make the perfect person.

“Do you see something you like?” She asks resting her hands on her hips and smirking at you. And you realize you’ve been gaping at her.

“I—No. I mean, not that I don’t see something I like. You’re, like, really pretty and everything. I just—I wasn’t just staring at you or anything.” Ms. Karnstein snorts and sit down.

“Alright, sweetheart. Just sit down. We have a few things to discuss.” You nod and sit down in the chair on the other side of Carmilla’s desk.

“First of all, just call me Carmilla. I realize there is a thing with using formalities when addressing your boss. I’m already under enough pressure as it is, so I don’t need an assistant following me around like a lost puppy calling me ‘Ms. Karnstein.’” Ms. Kar— _Carmilla_ starts to sort through the stack of papers on her desk. Then she sighs and stops. “I’m sure Natalie already told you this, but the company will be giving you a work phone with all the numbers you’ll need, including mine, in it. You’re not to use it for anything if it’s not directly related to your job. Also, for me personally, I’ll need you to be my note taker. Take notes on everything. I’m going to have you sort through this pile of contracts and agreements on my desk sometime. These really do build up.” She taps her chin, then looks at you critically. “You don’t look too dumb, so I can trust you to fetch the exact coffee I ask for right?”

“Um, yes?” She wasn’t exactly… Nice. But she wasn’t as big an asshole as you might have subconsciously expected her to be. You weren’t really sure how to feel about her.

“Good. At the moment we’re late for a meeting. If I were you I’d go home tonight and brush up on anything you don’t know about the company that’s general knowledge to the public. A few of my other assistants didn’t and their notes on my meetings were completely useless.” She stands and picks up a clipboard and a pen, shoving them into your chest. “Keep up. And don’t ask any stupid question if you can help it.”

* * *

 

 **Your first day actually**  working is a mix of refilling Carmilla’s mug of some coffee soy-milk blend that she drinks and taking notes at various meetings Carmilla has to attend. She doesn’t even acknowledge your presence except to tell you to refill her cup or to see the notes you’d been taking.

You’re sure that if she didn’t have an assistant with her, Carmilla wouldn’t have a clue what was going on at her meetings. She spends most of them twirling a pen in her hands looking out of the windows or staring at the walls, only stopping to sip her drink occasionally. Carmilla seems satisfied with your notes for the most part because she doesn’t yell at you when she goes over them. You can’t help but wonder what makes Carmilla tick as you watch her.

Carmilla walks straight, each of her steps seemingly calculated and well thought out. When she speaks it’s like her words have been chosen by someone else and relayed to her time and time again. Carmilla seems untouchable and above everything. You want more than anything to see those walls crack.

But that really isn’t your place.

Even if it was, would it really be worth the effort?


	3. Going Soft

_“Nothing is perfect. Life is messy. Relationships are complex. Outcomes are uncertain. People are irrational.”_ – Hugh Mackay

* * *

 

 **It’s Monday and you’ve** been working for Karnstein Industries officially for two weeks. Or fourteen days. You kind of prefer telling people fourteen days because it feels a bit longer. Carmilla’s meetings are boring to sit through, but you think you’re getting better at taking notes now that you know what she’s looking for.

Carmilla hasn’t explicitly complained yet, which you’re grateful for. But she doesn’t hold back in telling you when she disapproves of something you do. You deal with that as best you can. You’re actually growing to like it at Karnstein Industries despite the high maintenance and the sketchiness along with the fact that this is not where you’d imagined yourself working four years ago when you’d started college.

Every morning, you meet her at her office at nine AM sharp with her coffee and your clipboard in hand. Kirsch would let you in, then the three of you would go from meeting to meeting, as Carmilla’s schedule dictated. By the end of each day your hand felt like it would fall off from all the writing you’d do. And Carmilla would send you off without a word and Jacob would drive you home, where you’d then eat dinner with your Dad and binge watch something on Netflix or settle into one of your growing pile of books (you’d been eyeing Carmilla’s excessively large book collection in her office and been using that as a book recommendation). Then you’d go to sleep until your alarm woke you up and you started the next day.

However, this time when you knock on her door, its Carmilla’s voice that tells you to come in and Kirsch isn’t with her which you find weird. Usually, he was practically glued to her side unless she asked him to go do something for her. You think Kirsch’s job description might actually be bodyguard/actual puppy, because he goes and fetches whatever she asks him for quickly and without a single complaint.

Carmilla stands when she sees you and grabs nothing but her coffee mug from your hand. Then she strides past you without a word and a part of you wants to be shocked at her for not acknowledging you at all, but it’s really nothing new. With a soft sigh to yourself, you follow her to the elevator.

“Where’s Kirsch?” You ask and Carmilla presses the up button on the elevator before she turns to address you for the first time this morning.

“Upstairs.”

“Why isn’t he with you?”

“Because I told him to go upstairs,” she bites out. She’s see glaring at the door like she’d set it on fire if the doors don’t open _right_ then. You clutch your clipboard a little tighter to your chest as if that would protect you. Thankfully, the doors open just then and you both step inside. She presses the button to the thirty second floor and you stand beside her as you start to move up.

“So, you have a selectively present bodyguard? Doesn’t that kind of defeat the purpose?”

“Is there a reason you’re always asking questions?” She glances at you from the corners of her eyes and you find yourself blushing.

“Sorry, journalistic education. Questions are kind of encouraged.” Carmilla sighs at your answer and shakes her head.

“Well, questions aren’t exactly encouraged _here_. The less you know the better off you'll be.” You’re about to ask why that is, but the elevator doors open and Carmilla steps through quickly. You trail after her and see Kirsch waiting just outside the doors for her.

“Ladies.” He greets you with a smile and a dip of his head. She doesn’t look back at you and you think for a moment that you’ve annoyed her with your attempt at small talk on the short ride up in the elevator. You swallow and trail after Carmilla and Kirsch, walking into the meeting just as it’s about to start.

“Ms. Karnstein, how nice of you to join us,” one of the older women say. She’s small with graying hair and heavy make-up that reminds you vaguely of a china doll. The disdain in her voice is painfully clear to you and you glance at Carmilla as she sits down at the far end of the table.

If Carmilla hears the tone of the woman’s voice (which she has to because _you_ definitely did), she doesn’t acknowledge it immediately.

“I had to inform my new assistant of a few things, sorry to keep you all waiting,” Carmilla says politely, flashing them a small smile that makes your heart do that weird pounding it did whenever Carmilla did something out of the ordinary. “I don’t think you two have met yet. Laura, this is Ms. Jennings. Ms. Jennings, Laura Hollis.”

You’re honestly shocked Carmilla bothered to introduce you at all. When the old woman, apparently called ‘Ms. Jennings,’ looks at you with a disgusted sneer, you pale. You look at Carmilla and she’s just smirking at you like she can sense your discomfort.

 _Asshole_.

“Um, nice to meet you.” You say, looking from Carmilla back to Ms. Jennings and she snorts.

“The pleasure is all yours.” You don’t really have a response to that. So, feeling shut down, you move to stand behind Carmilla’s chair, keeping your mouth shut. You do catch Carmilla throwing an aggravated look in Ms. Jennings direction as you do, but it’s gone as quickly as you’d seen it appear.

Before you can think about it too much more, the meeting begins. It’s about the results of a focus group they’d done on a new Band-Aid commercial they’d set to be put into cable commercial rotations in the fall. Apparently, it had gone over with the kids well, but not as great with the adults. A debate starts on what they should do about it and Carmilla sits silent, not offering any suggestions.

You can’t see her expression from where you are behind her, but you can just imagine the pout on her lips, the knit of her eyebrows and—Wow. Notes. You need to focus on your notes.

* * *

 

 **Laura had only been** there for a few weeks and it was… Weird. It’s hard for you to be _really_ mean to her. You’re not nice to her by any definition of the word, but you aren’t explicitly mean to her, either. There was something about Laura that made you unsure if you wanted to go through with your plan to make her quit.

Laura was disgustingly inexperienced, but her effort was almost… _Endearing_. It made you sick that you thought her mistakes were… _Cute_. You couldn’t bring herself to really snap at Laura for messing up. Instead, you’d just been rolling your eyes and explaining how to do things correctly to her with only _mild_ irritation.

You were horrified at yourself.

You had hoped Maman wouldn’t come investigating into why your new assistant hadn’t called it quits yet after three weeks, but of course she did. She’d poked her nose in when one of the women had stayed an entire month, and you’d made sure she quit the next day.

For some reason, the idea of Maman thinking you’d grown to actual _like_ one of your assistants scared you. You didn’t want her to think you were soft. You think that maybe your habit of getting your assistants to quit was a subtle way of trying to show her that you _weren’t_ soft.

You dismiss that thought as quickly as it had come because that was absolutely ridiculous.

When Maman came strolling into your office unannounced early on a Tuesday morning, just as you’d come in, you know exactly what it was about. Maman asks Kirsch to leave and he does without a word, closing the door behind him. You almost want to be mad at Kirsch for how wordlessly he obeys your mother, but you don’t exactly blame him.

Maman doesn’t say anything to you at first. She just looks around your office, picking up books and folders and straightening things up. You let her do that for a couple seconds.

“Mother,” you greet after the silence becomes unbearable.

“Carmilla, sweetheart. I came to check in on how things are going with your new assistant. I assume well, because she hasn’t somehow found assisting you and the company incompatible to her needs yet.” You open your mouth to speak, but she cuts you off. “With her lack of experience in the personal assistance field, I figured you hired her as some sort of joke, but she’s still here.” She looks at you and you turn your gaze from her. She doesn’t speak for a moment, but seeing as you’re not saying anything, she continues. “I don’t know, I thought you might have a soft spot for her or something.”

“I don’t.” You say, and it comes out in such a small voice that even though you’d believed it when you said it, you don’t even convince yourself.

“Are you sure? It’s fine if you do, sweetheart. Really. Every executive gets that one employee that they can’t help but have feelings for. It happens to the best of us.”

“I _don’t_ have a soft spot for her. She’s just an idiot with thick skin.” You harden your voice defensively this time and Maman tilts her head to the side.

“Darling, no need to be defensive.” Her smile is sweet, but it doesn’t reach her eyes and you feel suffocated.

“I’m _not_.” You insist and she crosses her arms over her chest. “Laura Hollis is just oblivious. She doesn’t mean a thing to me.”

“I hope you’re not planning on making her quit now because I asked you a question.” It feels like she’s _daring_ you to make her quit. To get rid of her. You close your hands into fists against your thighs and let out a breath.

“Of course not.”

“Alright, I must be going then. Enjoy the rest of your day.” She practically glides out of your office. You want to throw something and you’re not even sure why. No, you know why. You still feel like a child when she is near you. And there wasn’t a thing you could do about it. Compared to Maman, you’d always be a child.

* * *

 

 **You know something is** wrong with Carmilla as soon as you’re let into her office. You knock politely as always and Kirsch lets you in. He’s frowning, which is a big change compared to the goofy grin he’s usually wearing. Carmilla is typing on her computer, which is even stranger because she _never_ does _anything_.

Since you’d gotten there, you’d been doing all her work for her with Carmilla hovering over your shoulder to make sure you didn’t fuck anything up the first week. After that, she’d lounge around reading or napping while you did _all_ her work for her.

But now, Carmilla is doing it herself and she doesn’t even look at you when you enter. You clear your throat in an effort to subtly get her attention, but she ignores you. You look up at Kirsch and he shrugs. Then he nods towards Carmilla, which you interpret as him encouraging you to try and talk to her.

“Um, Carmilla?” You ask and she glares at you.

“What?” Her voice is flat and controlled, but her eyes are cold and it sends an unpleasant shiver through you.

“I—I’m here. So, if there’s anything you need me to do—”

“You’ve been here long enough. Figure out something to do.”

_Oh._

“Do you have a problem?” Carmilla asks and you feel your heart skip a beat. Apparently you’d said that out loud. You shake your head.

“No, no problem here. Just—Is there something wrong?” Carmilla stiffens for a moment. Then she shuts off her computer and stands. She brushes past you wordlessly.

You look up at Kirsch as you start to follow after her, but he grabs your arm to stop you.

“Hey, little nerd. I have to talk to you really quickly.” You’re honestly more worried about your job than about how Kirsch came up with this nickname, though the thought does surface.

“I don’t know, Carmilla seems pretty pissed. I think I should—”

“It’ll just take a second.” You sigh and turn to him. He releases your arm. “Her Mother came to see her today. Well, she’s not her _real_ mother, but she might as well be. Anyways, she always gets pissed off after the Dean comes and talks to her. Just, be careful. She’s going to be mad all day, and she’s going to try take it out on you.”

“Well, that’s rude.”

“It’s just how she is. I just wanted to let you know.” You look at the concerned look on his face and smile. Kirsch was sweet. How he had ended up a bodyguard, you’re not really sure.

“Thanks, Kirsch. I’ll be careful what I say. We should probably hurry and catch up to her now though.”

“Right. Of course.” You both shuffle from her office and meet Carmilla at the elevator where she’s tapping her foot impatiently. You take a deep breath and prepare to face Carmilla at her worst.

* * *

 

 **Carmilla is an asshole** to you all day. She’s not even halfway as patient with you as she had been and she wasn’t afraid to berate you if you made the tiniest mistake. It was infuriating. Thanks to Kirsch, you knew she was just taking her frustrations out on you. Which was not in any way okay with you.

You don’t complain until the end of the day when the both of you head off to her office to close out for the day. Carmilla tells Kirsch to get the car for her so that he can drive her home and he gives you a nod that you think is for luck and he leaves the two of you alone.

“Is there anything else you need me to do?” You ask her. You really just want to go home and take a nap because resisting the urge to argue with Carmilla had been a bit exhausting. She snorts and sits down at her desk.

“It’s not like you were much help today, anyways. Just leave and maybe you’ll be useful tomorrow.” And that’s the last straw.

“What is your _problem_?” You ask and she looks up at you with fire in her eyes. And, despite the dread you feel, you still think for a moment that she’s still insanely gorgeous when she’s angry.

“I don’t have a _problem_.”

“You’ve been nothing but an asshole to me all day. And I don’t even know why. I haven’t done a thing to you. Are you really so upset by the Dean coming in to check up on you that you have to take it out on me?”

“Don’t act like you know anything about that. What, did _Kirsch_ tell you that I bitch when my mother decides to pay me a visit?” You look from her to the ground and she laughs bitterly. “Neither of you know what you’re talking about, so feel free to stay in your place or get out.”

“Kirsch _cares_ about you and he was concerned so he warned me you’d be like this all day, but this is freaking ridiculous.”

“What? Do you find the business world to be too much pressure for you? News flash: the world isn’t nice. _I’m_ not nice.”

“You wanna know what I think?”

“No.” You glare at her and she smiles at you like this is some kind of joke. “That bunched up little face you make when you’re angry is hilarious, buttercup.”

“I can’t believe you’re treating this like—like a joke. I don’t get why you’re acting like you’re so above it all, when really you’re just miserable and alone.” She’s silent for a moment and you want to take back those words. Because it hits you that Carmilla’s your _boss,_ and you were arguing with her like she was one of your friends who’d pissed you off.

“Do you think you’re actually doing anything important here? That you _will_ do anything important?” She stands, hands closed into fists and pressed against her desk. Her voice isn’t raised in anger; it’s still calm and calculated like she’s choosing the words that she knows will hurt you the most. And boy, do they hurt you. She strikes a sore nerve. “You’re a _child_ , and you understand _nothing_. Not about life, not about this place, and certainly not about what it takes to survive in this kind of world where—” she pauses and takes a ragged breath. Her eyes are wide as if realizing what she’s been saying. You think she thinks she’s revealed something to you.

And she has. More than the both of you know in that moment.

She shakes her head and glares at you. “The sooner you stop trying to understand me and get your head out of the fucking clouds, the better off you’ll be.”

You could probably cut the tension in the room with a knife. You kind of want to cry. Not because what she said upset you, but because you’re pissed. You’re totally and completely pissed off. It was so unfair of Carmilla to take this out on you.

“No.”

“Excuse me?”

“No. I’m not going to stand here and let you talk to me like that. I may just be a personal assistant or whatever, but I deserve better than that. And maybe you deserve better than this stupid business life. Do you even _want_ to be here?” You only pause for a second, then you continue. You don’t want her answer. “I don’t even care right now. You just make me so _mad_.”

You throw your clipboard to the ground and she jumps. Honest to God, _jumps._ You won’t let yourself feel guilty about that though, so you storm out of her office. You march down the hallway and press the button to the elevator over and over until the doors open and you step inside. It’s only on the way down that you realize you’d just argued with your _boss._ Carmilla was a no shit type of person. You were supposed to take her yelling and ignore it.

You’d probably just gotten yourself fired.

You groan and press your forehead into the wall of the elevator.

“Shit.”

* * *

 

 **You manage to convince** yourself after a few hours of stuffing your face with cookies that maybe not working at Karnstein Industries isn’t such a bad thing. You’d honestly been so lost in that world. You only halfway knew how things worked now and you honestly didn’t like what you were seeing. It had just happened so fast. You’d thought Carmilla might actually like you and to have her treat you like nothing kind of hurt.

You’d been naïve.

You stuff another chocolate chip cookie into your mouth and try to enjoy your Doctor Who reruns, but you’re thinking about where you’re going to start working now. And you’re also thinking about Carmilla. She was such an asshole, but you can’t help but think it’s a defense mechanism. From what? You don’t really know. You don’t know why you’re trying to defend her to yourself and it’s frustrating.

You jump when the front door opens and your father enters.

“Hi, Dad.” You breathe and he smiles at you, kicking off his shoes.

“Hey, Laura. How was work?” You sigh and look down at the cookie between your fingers. There’s only one more broken cookie left in the box. “Well, that doesn’t sound good.”

He sits down next to you, loosening his tie and you pause your show.

“Well? What’s wrong?”

“I think I got myself fired,” you admit and he leans back, raising an eyebrow.

“Why do you think that?” It’s strangely important to you that he didn’t say _‘What did_ you _do?’_ and blame you for what happened, even though you feel like it’s entirely your fault.

“I yelled at my boss. She was just being an as—being rude to me. I hadn’t done anything to her that would make her be rude to me, and I ended up arguing with her. I messed up.” Your father is silent for a moment. He strokes his short beard thoughtfully.

“Did she say you were fired?”

“Well, no, but—”

“Well, maybe you aren’t fired then. Why don’t you call them and make sure?”

“What am I supposed to say? ‘Hey, sorry I yelled at you. I still have a job, right?’”

“Laura. Why do you think she was mad today?”

“I—Well Kirsch said her mother, who’s not her mother, came and talked to her today. And that she usually gets in a bad mood after talking to her. Carmilla’s just—She infuriates me. And there’s a reason for it. There has to be, right?” You look up at your dad and he’s watching you wordlessly. You drag a hand down your face and sigh. “I don’t even know why I care so much.”

Your father lays a hand on your shoulder and you look up at him.

“Consider this.” He picks up the broken cookie and shows it to you. “What is this?”

“A cookie?”

“Right. Now this cookie is broken, right? But it’s still a cookie. You’d still eat it, right? There’s nothing actually wrong with this cookie that makes it any less of a cookie. If you put the pieces together,” he puts the pieces together and holds it up, “it’s a full cookie. It’s just like the rest of the cookies.” He hands it to you and you take it, nibbling on one half. “Still tastes great, right? Do you get what I’m trying to say?”

“So, what you’re telling me I have to do… Is eat Carmilla?” You smile at him and he rolls his eyes.

“ _Ha ha_.” He snatches the other half from your hand and eats it.

“No. I get what you’re saying, Dad. Carmilla is just like everyone else, with her own issues and I should try and work past that. _If_ I still have a job.” He nods.

“I’m glad you got that. I thought it wouldn’t make much sense.” He stands and brushes the crumbs from his hands and takes the empty packaging from your lap. “I was thinking tacos for dinner. Sound good to you?”

“Yeah, that sounds perfect.”

But, that night, you don’t call Karnstein Industries about the possibility of you being fired. You lie down in bed that night accepting the fact that you’d lost yourself a well-paying job. And that you might be okay with never figuring out Carmilla Karnstein.

* * *

 

 **You wake up the** next morning to a phone call and you look at your clock and see its 8:36 AM. And then you see it’s your work phone ringing by your bedside and the caller ID reads: _Carmilla Karnstein_.

_What the hell?_

You pick up and answer. “Hello?”

“What the fuck are you doing?” She asks.

“Well I _was_ asleep.”

“It’s rude of you to keep your driver waiting outside of your house. You’re lucky Jacob’s a nice guy and called me instead of just leaving you there.”

“Wait, I’m not fired?”

“Did I fire you?”

“Well, not that I know of but—”

“Did you quit?”

“Well, _no_ , but—”

“Then why are you not crossing the Brooklyn Bridge right now? You’re going to be late, therefore making _me_ late. Get the fuck up. And Sarah Jane says you didn’t change your clothes, so the ones you wore yesterday weren’t cleaned. Bring them back here and then change into your clothes for today. Alright?”

“I—Okay.” You’re stunned. Carmilla hums in acknowledgement on the other line.

“I’ll see you when you get here.” She hangs up. In your three weeks working for her, Carmilla had _never once_ talked with you on the phone and you were beyond confused. Carmilla had almost sounded wistful in that goodbye. You shake your head; you were reading too much into it.

You get up and pull on some clothes. You brush your teeth quickly and you double check once or twice to make sure you have everything, and then you rush outside.

“Sorry, Jacob.” He’s leaning against the car and he straightens immediately when he sees you.

“Did you forget it was a Wednesday today?”

“I guess we can go with that answer.” You tell him and he smiles, moving to open your door for you, but you jump forward and grab the handle. “No, I got it. It’s the least I can do after being so late.”

He just shrugs and moves around to the driver’s side. You shoot your dad a quick text to tell him you still have a job and then you slouch into your seat.

* * *

 

 **Carmilla acts like yesterday** afternoon didn’t happen, and while you were fine with that at first, you really did want to talk about it. You manage not to confront her the entire day, though you’re itching to. Carmilla is just as impervious as she always is. She sits in her meetings twirling her pencil between her fingers while you take notes on them for her.

She asks to see your notes and today she hands them back to you wordlessly rather than yelling at you about something stupid like how you erased. You finally get her alone at the end of the day after she sends Kirsch away again.

“Carmilla.”

“What?” You almost lose your nerve, but you shake your head and continue.

“Are you just going to pretend the argument we had yesterday didn’t happen?”

“Well that was the plan, sweetheart. Are you going to organize these folders or do I have to do it myself?”

“I’ll do it.” You move towards her desk and she steps away. “But why are you ignoring it?”

“Because it’s not important.”

“Yes it is.” You protest. “I— We were _arguing._ And I know I said some things and _you_ said some things, but I just thought—”

“Look, if you want an apology, you’re not going to get one. That’s now how I do things. We were both a little heated and said things we didn’t really mean. It’s over. It happened. Let’s move past it.”

“Okay… But—”

“God, just let it _go,_ cupcake.” She leans back against one of her bookshelves and eyes you as if deciding exactly what she wanted to say next. “I feel like I’m in a fucking relationship with you always wanting to _talk_.”

“Well, with how close we’re working, we might as well be dating, yeah?” You mean it as a joke and Carmilla laughs. It’s not a condescending or mocking laugh, it’s an honest to God _laugh_. You stare at her in shock and when she meets your eye again she almost looks embarrassed.

“I’m not paying you to be funny,” she says, clearing her throat and you smile, looking back down at the folders beneath your hands and you start to organize them and put them into her drawers.

“No, you’re paying me to do your job for you,” you say after a few minutes and when you peek up at her, she rolls her eyes.

“Shut up.”

* * *

 

 **You couldn’t stop thinking** about her. Something about arguing with Laura had made you feel terrible about yourself and you had no idea why. You couldn’t really stomach the fact that you might actually _like_ her, because Laura really wasn’t engineered for this world. She wasn’t meant to be a personal assistant, if her constant questioning and need to _talk_ told you anything about her.

Laura was a journalist through and through. And you couldn’t stop thinking about what she’d told you yesterday afternoon. It had been said in a spout of anger, but you couldn’t keep your mind off of it.

 _‘Maybe you deserve better than this stupid business life. Do you even_ want _to be here?’_

You’d never really thought about if you really _wanted_ to follow the business path. It had been expected of you since you were born. There _weren’t_ any other options for you. Were there?

The thoughts had stayed with you through to the next day and you told Jacob before he left to call you if Laura didn’t come outside within ten minutes of his arrival at her house, just in case. You’re glad you did, because he’d ended up calling you. If you hadn’t, due to policy, he would have had to leave her there and you might not have had a choice but to fire her.

You’d saved her job and you’re not even sure why. Her arguing with you had been refreshing in its own way too. No one talked back to you. Ever.

You’re lying down in your bed for the night with your sketchbook into your lap and a pencil in your hand. You space out as you let your hand do its thing, basking for a small moment in how natural and good it felt to use your left hand to do things. After a moment, you focus on the paper and you realize you’ve been drawing Laura onto the page. It’s just a sketch, but you know it’s her. You’d recognize that goofy, stupid, adorable face anywhere.

You rip it out, crumble it up, and toss it into the trash.

You were _not_ doing this. You wouldn’t. You couldn’t.


	4. Secrets & Dances

_“To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love.”_ – Jane Austen

* * *

 

 **It had been nearly** three months since you and Carmilla’s argument. And almost four months since you’d started working at Karnstein Industries. It was nearing the end of July and Carmilla was being, for the most part, pretty nice to you. You’d heard from the gossip in the employee lounge that this was the longest she’d ever kept an assistant and you’re proud to have stayed longer than anyone else had.

You walk into the building during the last week of July, change as normal and grab your clipboard from your locker. You then head up to Carmilla’s office. When you knock, Kirsch isn’t there to answer the door which hadn’t happened in a while. Carmilla glances up at you from where she’s slouching in her chair, for once not sitting with perfect posture, then she goes back to scrolling through her phone.

“Hey.” She says.

“Hey.” You reply and you look around at nothing in particular before you ask the question sitting on the tip of your tongue. “So, is there a reason Kirsch isn’t here, or?”

“I don’t need him around every waking moment, if that’s what you mean. I just asked him to give us some privacy when you came in today.” Carmilla answers, flipping through the pile of papers on her desk. You can tell she’s not really looking at them, and you dread the moment you know she’ll ask you to go through them for her.

“Why?” You ask. She sets her hand on top of the papers and looks at you with an unreadable expression.

“Would you believe I wanted to be alone with you?” She meets your eye and you manage to hold her gaze. That is, until you feel a blush rising to your cheeks.

“You’re a terrible flirt.” You tell her as you break eye contact. You can still feel Carmilla’s eyes on you. When you meet her eyes again, she’s just staring at you with a pleased smile on her face. It honestly makes you halfway uncomfortable because you’re entertaining the thought that Carmilla was _actually_ flirting with you.

Which was ridiculous.

Both your thoughts and her stare are interrupted by her phone buzzing against her desk. She looks at the Caller ID, then answers it with a sigh.

“Bonjour?” Carmilla gives you a look as the person on the other line starts to reply to her in French. You’re surprised because you’d honestly had no idea, in the four months you’d been working here, that Carmilla could speak French. She stands and walks out of her office as the person continues to talk. She holds a finger up to you to tell you not to move. She closes the door behind her.

You watch Carmilla leave, and her voice turns stern as she replies to the person just before the door closes completely behind her. You can’t help but compare it to how softly she’d been speaking to you not even a minute before.

You find yourself thinking about Carmilla’s attitude. (You ignore how she seems to be all that occupies your thoughts now.) There are times when she’s really nice. Like, _really_ nice. But it’s like she has a guard up for some reason.

But the more you think about it, the more that guard kind of makes sense.

Carmilla is about to be twenty five, when she’ll become the leading chairman for this _huge_ company whose influence spans nearly the entire globe. A company that had so many branches and charity funds to worry about. Along with its own individual campaigns for both publicity and company interest. With that much responsibility about to just be handed off to her, there had to be older, more experienced people on the board who thought she wasn’t ready for (or worthy of) the position. Or others that look down on her just because of what was between her legs.

And, yeah, her aunt was acting as chairman at the moment. But the Dean, from what she’d heard, had a presence that filled an entire room. When she was around, a person could just feel the shift in the aura. From the gossip you’d heard, the Dean was a scary, scary woman. You want to think it’s weird that you’ve been working this closely with Carmilla for almost four months and you’d yet to meet her mother, but you honestly dread the day that you will meet her.

You sit twiddling your thumbs, waiting for Carmilla to come back in, but she’s gone for a long time and your eyes wander to that stack of papers sitting on Carmilla’s desk. You think you should go ahead and do something productive, after all you know you’ll be the one getting to them eventually. And it wasn’t like you were doing anything else. You drum your fingers against your thigh, deciding to wait thirty more seconds.

She doesn’t come back.

You stand and move around to the other side of the desk, sitting in Carmilla’s chair. You feel weird about the passing thought that you can still feel the warmth from when Carmilla had been sitting in this spot a few moments ago. You organize her papers and, after all your months of practice, it only takes you a couple minutes. At the bottom of the stack of papers is a black ringed book you’d never seen before.

You turn the book over a few times, but you don’t find any writing on it that could tell you what it is. So you open it up and a pile of pages fall out into your lap.

“Oh crap.” You hiss, and you set the book back down on Carmilla’s desk and pick up the pages as quickly and carefully as you can. It’s then that you notice that the pages are drawn on and you lay them out on the desk. They’re mostly just sketches. One of a woman holding a child. Another of a bird taking flight. There’s one of a sunrise or a sunset. And another of a stalking panther delicately sketched into a barely drawn out ghost of a woodland. None of the sketches were completely finished, but they were amazing and you’re speechless.

“What are you doing?” You look up and see Carmilla standing in the threshold of her office, her fist curled around her phone and her jaw set. You feel your heart skip a beat at being caught looking at something that seemed so private, even if it had been an accident at first.

“I—I was just—,” You can’t find the words to explain what you’d been doing even though there’s a perfect good explanation for this. Carmilla walks purposefully towards you and you stand quickly, dropping the sketches onto Carmilla’s desk. She carefully stacks the sketches back up and slides them back into the black book. “I’m sorry. I promise I wasn’t going through your things I was just—,”

“You can’t tell anyone about these.” Carmilla tells you and you stare at her, mouth open wordlessly.

“Why not? Those are really good Carmilla. If you really worked on them I think—,”

“No. You can’t tell _anyone_ you saw these. I mean it.” And it hits you that Carmilla isn’t demanding. She’s _pleading_. There’s a scared look in her eyes for some reason. As if, if you were to tell anyone what a brilliant artist she was, her drawings would be torn away from her forever.

“I won’t. Okay? This can stay between us. Like a secret between the two of us, yeah?” Carmilla drums her fingers against the notebook.

“Fine. Our little secret, cupcake.”

“Let’s pinky swear on it.” You suggest, holding out your pinky to her. She looks at your finger, then at you like you’ve grown a horn in the center of your head. “Oh come on, you’ve never made a pinky swear before? They’re unbreakable.”

“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Don’t be such a party pooper.” Carmilla glares at you. Then, not without rolling her eyes a little too hard, she crosses her pinky with yours.

“Fine. _Pinky swear_.” She releases your finger after a moment and you find yourself smiling bubbly at her. She drops the sketchbook into one of her lower drawers and locks it with a key that she drops into her bra.

“But,” You start and Carmilla frowns, probably knowing you’re about to ask her a question again. “Am I allowed to ask why exactly I’m not allowed to share that Carmilla Karnstein is like crazy art savvy?”

“Will you stop asking me questions today if I tell you?”

“Maybe.” Carmilla sighs and you smile. You move back around to the other side of the desk and Carmilla slumps into her seat. She brushes her bangs away from her eyes, and they fall right back into place like they belong there. You’ve noticed that no matter how Carmilla tries to push them away, they always fall right back where they were. Not that you’ve been staring or anything. You definitely have _not_ been staring.

“My mother… The Dean, she didn’t approve of my drawing. She felt my drawing was a distraction. So, she tried to make me stop.” Carmilla lifts her left hand and trains her eyes on it, then she drops her wrist and meets your gaze again. “I’m actually left handed, even though I usually write with my right hand for appearance reasons.”

“Why?”

“Mother says left handedness is a defect. An imperfection.”

“Harsh.”

“Well, such is life. I can only draw with my left hand. It’s more natural.” She continues. “Drawing is my escape from all this.” She gestures to nothing in particular, but you know what she means. “It’s a thing I won’t give up. And I can’t risk Mother finding out and firing the lady I have buy me new sketchbooks when I need them.”

“Who’s that?”

“One of the maids. Nice woman.” Carmilla says, she’s leaning on one elbow, cheek in her hand. She's looking at you. You can’t help but feel like she not really looking _at_ you, but looking for something _in_ you and you shift under her calculated gaze. You’re thankful when Carmilla starts to talk again. “Well, the phone call was to inform me that one of our people from France flew in unexpectedly and wants to speak with our board, and that we must be present for this impromptu meeting.”

“Right.” You stand and find your clipboard sitting on the edge of Carmilla’s desk. You pick it up and hold it against your chest, trying not to linger on that _we_. “Ready to go then?”

Carmilla smiles at that. It’s small, but the fact it’s there at all makes you feel a bit warm. Carmilla nods and stands, moving from behind her desk and towards the door. “After you, creampuff.”

* * *

 

 **“Hungry?” Carmilla asks you** after the three hour meeting. The guy had spoken in French throughout the entire meeting, and Carmilla had half paid attention to the meeting after telling you not to bother with writing anything down. Kirsch had been in the meeting room when the two of you had arrived and he was now following closely behind the two of you.

“A bit, why?”

“I thought we could go to lunch. I’m famished.” Carmilla picks a hair from her shirt and flicks it away.

“I can’t exactly say no, can I?” Carmilla usually let you have a lunch break by yourself and you’d eat in the employee lounge with whoever was there at the same time as you. You’re surprised she’s inviting you to eat with her, but there had been a lot of surprises today.

“Hmm. Guess not.” She looks you up and down once, then she turns her gaze from you and presses the elevator button down to the first floor.

It’s a long ride down the ground level and the food court, but the elevator stops at the sixteenth floor and Carmilla shifts beside you as a man with combed back chocolate brown hair that you haven’t seen before (which isn’t surprising considering a couple thousand people worked in this building) steps into the elevator. You take note of his suit, but he’s wearing a pair of dirty black converse that ruin the tidy look. You glance at Carmilla and watch a smirk stretch onto her face and realize she knows this guy.

“Well, Willy-boy. I wasn’t expecting to see you today.”

“Aw, kitty. Did you miss me?” At first, you seriously think they hate each other. Then Carmilla opens her arms and he hugs her. It’s a quick hug, and he’s a few inches taller than her so he has to bend slightly. It takes you a moment too long to realize that this is William Eisen-Karnstein, Carmilla’s cousin.

Carmilla asks him how he’s been and they spend some time teasing each other like you’d expect siblings to do, and catching up on what they’ve been doing. You manage to catch that Will has been out of the country for school, but he’s back for a month before he heads back to Germany.

Carmilla tells him that they’ll catch up more later as the elevator stops at the bottom floor and Will agrees. Then he turns to you as you all step out into the lobby.

“Who’s this?” He asks, and Carmilla crosses her arms over her chest.

“This is Laura Hollis. My newest personal assistant.”

“Really? She’s cute. You should keep her.” Carmilla slaps his bicep, and you blush.

“Well, Laura here hasn’t quit yet, and it’s been a couple months now. So that’s a good sign.” Carmilla says and Will laughs. Carmilla seems so carefree in this moment, like she doesn’t have a single responsibility. Her face is completely relaxed, her body language completely different. It reminds you of how she’d been when she’d been talking about her drawings.

“I’ll see you later, Carmilla.”

“Yeah, bye, Will.” He waves to her and heads out the front doors. Carmilla then turns to Kirsch. “Will you make sure Will gets to his car safely, then you can join us back here?”

“Sure.” Kirsch says, his lips spread into a giant grin and he turns to follow after Will. Carmilla pretends not to notice, but Kirsch high fives Will and they start talking immediately as they both leave.

“You’re really a nice person, aren’t you?” You say and Carmilla rolls her eyes.

“Do you ever stop asking questions?” She retorts, but it doesn’t have any bite to it. Carmilla had let Kirsch go catch up with Will because the two of them were friends. It was completely clear to you that Carmilla was a big softie in disguise, but you decide to let it go.

“Nope.” You finally answer and Carmilla lets out a long sigh. “So, what’s for lunch?”

Yeah, breaking through Carmilla’s walls? Totally worth it.

* * *

 

 **If you’ve learned anything** over the past four months working for Carmilla, it was that she was a lot nicer at nine in the morning if there was a coffee in your hand. So you’d started to get in earlier so you could change quickly, prepare her strange mix and be on time to her office so they could start their day. But today as you raise your hand to knock on Carmilla’s door, someone is on their way out and you nearly drop Carmilla’s coffee.

“Shoot.” You mutter, re-adjusting your grip.

“Well, if it isn’t Laura Hollis.” The person says, and you feel like the woman’s voice is filling the entire hallway. Like it’s suffocating you. You’d yet to meet her, but it didn’t take a detective to know who this is. “I don’t believe we’ve met yet. I’m Lilita Morgan, but you can call me the Dean.”

The Dean extends a hand to you and you take it cautiously, but shake it firmly. The Dean looks slightly impressed by the firm shake and a smile graces her lips. She towers over you and you can’t bring yourself to look higher than her mouth.

You look past the Dean for a moment and see Carmilla standing in front of her desk rather than sitting behind it, and her eyes are downcast. You fear she’ll take out her feelings on you again once the Dean has left. You swallow and nod.

“Nice to meet you, Ms. Dean, sir.” You dip your head to her, keeping your gaze low.

“It was nice to see you, Ms. Hollis.” You nod, and the Dean brushes past you. Once she’s gone, you feel like you can finally breathe again. You let out a breath you’re pretty sure you hadn’t been holding in the first place. Carmilla hasn’t moved and Kirsch isn’t in the room. So you walk in and close the door behind you.

“Do you want to talk about it?” You ask to break the silence.

“No.” Carmilla snaps. Neither of you move, Carmilla stays standing with her fists clenched by her sides and you stay standing right in front of the door.

“I mean, a personal visit from the Dean. That’s kind of… Unheard of.” You pause for a moment. Not the right thing to say. “Well, maybe not really for you, but— Well, what was it about?”

Carmilla doesn’t answer you and you think for a moment she won’t answer you at all.

“I said some things she didn’t like.” Carmilla admits, thankfully stopping you from going into the mindless babble that had been lingering on your tongue. You shift on the balls of your feet and Carmilla leans back against her desk and swallows, then she spits out, “No one here understands obligation. It’s like an undersea anchor impossible to escape.” She chokes on the last word, and looks horrified at herself. So you decide to try and comfort her as best you know how while staying as professional as possible.

“What? Worried you’re not living up to expectations?” Carmilla looks at you like you’ve sprouted another head, and you just give her an encouraging smile. “Hey, only child of a _massively_ overprotective dad here.” Carmilla turns her eyes from you, so you continue in a lighter voice. “And I didn’t even have to get all Coleridge-y about it.”

That makes Carmilla smile and you lean back against the door, the tension leaving both your shoulders. You stare at each other wordlessly for a moment, before a knock on the door interrupts you. You move away from the door as Carmilla speaks. “Come in.”

Kirsch pushes the door open slowly, and then seeing no one is in the way, opens it completely. “Hey, are you two ready to go?”

“Are we going somewhere?” You turn to Carmilla, who looks just as untouchable as any other day, unlike she’d been a few minutes ago. Carmilla crosses her arms and nods in response to your question.

“Yes, we are.” Carmilla strides past you and Kirsch, who’s still been holding the door open. He moves from the threshold to let her past him. You look at Kirsch for more detail than that, but he just shrugs. You huff and move past him to trail after Carmilla.

“And you didn’t think, ‘Hey, maybe I should let Laura know we were leaving the building today?’” You ask.

“Nope. Didn’t come up.” You roll your eyes, but don’t press her again for more information. Carmilla has always been incredibly rude, but you couldn’t help but remember how vulnerable she’d looked just minutes ago. You remind yourself again that Carmilla is still human, and that she has feelings. Even if she might pretend not to.

You ride down in the elevator, and you give Betty a wave because she looks bored at her desk. Kirsch escorts you and Carmilla to the front where a car is waiting. Carmilla climbs inside first and you get in after her. Kirsch closes the door behind you, then gets into the driver’s seat. You feel like a professional chauffeur should be driving the two of you, but then again you don’t exactly know the full extent of Kirsch’s position.

“Does the dress shop know we’re on our way?”

“They do.” Kirsch replies.

“Dress shop?” You ask, but you're ignored.

“Perfect.” Carmilla sits back in her seat and closes her eyes. You poke her arm and Carmilla glares at you.

“Is there an event we’re supposed to be going to or something?” You ask and Carmilla rolls her eyes.

“Yes, cupcake.”

“And no one thought to tell me?”

“Must have slipped my mind.” Yep. Carmilla was still as irritating as ever.

“Carmilla, can you at least tell me what event we’re going to? I’d like to have _some_ idea of what’s going on sometimes.” Carmilla doesn’t respond at first, her fingers drumming against her thigh and then she sighs.

“You’re right. You should be more informed.” It’s not exactly an apology, but the fact that Carmilla has decided to appease to you at all felt like progress and you can’t help but smile. “We have a charity event to attend tonight for some PR purposes. I hope you didn’t have any plans.”

“Well I guess that doesn’t matter now, does it?” You sigh and slouch in your seat. You _didn’t_ have any plans, but it would have been nice to know you were expected to be somewhere tonight. You can’t help but feel it was seriously irresponsible that no one had told you.

“I guess not. The head of Karnstein Industries’ PR Firm is going to meet us at the dress shop so we can get you a dress that _I_ like and that is appropriate.”

“Not Sarah Jane.”

“No. She’s only in charge of how the employees dress at the office. Also, Danny is going to tell you how you’ll need to behave.”

“How to behave?” You’re offended by that one.

“Yes. I’m assuming you’ve never been to one of these before,” she isn’t wrong. “And I have to make sure you don’t embarrass me.” You want to argue with her on that one, but Carmilla is smiling good-naturedly.

She’s teasing you.

“Oh, thanks,” she say, and Carmilla turns away from you. But you can see from the reflection of the window that she’s smiling. You really can’t explain the warmth that bubbles in the pit of your stomach.

* * *

 

 **“Danny.” Carmilla greets and** when you first look at her, all you can think is ‘ _Wow, she’s tall.’_

Danny is standing near the entrance to a place called _Misses Dressy_. She’s really tall. Like, _really tall_. Her ginger hair up in a ponytail. She’s wearing dress pants and an unbuttoned blazer. When the two of you approach her, neither of you are higher than her chin. She seems to tower over both of you. Kirsch drives away to park the car, but he promises to be back with you in a few minutes.

“Ms. Karnstein.” Danny dips a head to Carmilla, then looks at you. “I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Danielle Lawrence, but you can just call me Danny. I’m the head of the Karnstein Industries’ PR Firm.”

“I know. I mean, I heard. I mean, Carmilla told me in the car and—,”

“The chatty blonde is named Laura Hollis.” Carmilla interrupts and you blush. Just your luck _. Of course_ Danny was pretty. Was everyone involved in Karnstein Industries just insanely attractive?

“Nice to meet you, Ms. Hollis.” Danny holds out a hand and you shake it. Wow, her hand was warm. You look at Carmilla and she’s half glaring and you, so you pull your hand from Danny’s grip guiltily. Then you feel stupid for feeling guilty. It’s not like you’d made out with her, and even if you _had_ it’s not like you were _dating_ Carmilla. You had absolutely no reason to feel guilty. You look from her back to Danny.

“Please just call me Laura. I feel like a forty year old when people call me Ms. Hollis.” You say, and you’re proud of yourself for making it through the sentence without stuttering. _Nailed it._

“Alright then, Laura.” Danny smiles and it’s infectious.

“Anyway.” Carmilla bites out and you both turn to her. “We need to get Laura a dress for tonight, and I figured you’d know exactly what kind of event we’re headed to. So if we can get to that.”

“Oh, yeah. Of course.”

“Wait,” you say, putting a hand very briefly on Carmilla’s forearm to get her attention. “I thought we were here to get _you_ a dress.”

“Oh, please, sweetheart. I’ve known about this event for months. I already have my outfit. However, my assistant will need to be by my side all night, so I need you to look presentable.”

“Are you trying to tell me you didn’t hire me for my keen fashion sense?” You joke, and Carmilla rolls her eyes, her lips pressed together as she tries not to smile. And she looked entirely too cute. You decide to kill the any thoughts you have about Danny because nothing could hold a candle to Carmilla’s smile.

“Oh no, it definitely wasn’t that.”

“Hey—” You start to protest, but you’re cut off.

“Danny, if you will.” Carmilla turns from you and gestures for Danny to lead them inside, which she does. It’s beautiful inside, and there are all sorts of different kinds of dresses on scary thin mannequins and you can’t help but feel out of place here.

You stop once and look at the price tag on a random dress, and then you withdraw your hand like you’ve been burned. Six hundred for a dress? That was completely insane.

“You already know what I’m wearing, Danny. So if you can find something that would make Laura here look pretty on my arm for when we walk the red carpet tonight that would be great.” Carmilla sits on a couch and leans backwards, crossing her legs. You want to ask about the red carpet because this was all news to you, but decide to just roll with it. “And bring her back out for me. I want to look at the dresses to.”

“Are you really sure we should be shopping _here_?” You ask, looking around at all the expensive looking dresses. “I mean, it’s just really expensive and I can’t afford anything here.”

“Cupcake,” You look at Carmilla and she gives you a quirky grin. “Stop talking. It’s on me, we’re just renting whatever dress it is for the night. So you’re not allowed to spill anything.”

“Yeah, okay.” You sigh at her suggestion that you’re prone to accidents which is mostly untrue. You look from Carmilla, who’s starting to look pretty comfortable, up to Danny who’s smiling at you.

“You can follow me and we can get rolling.” You nod and trail after Danny.

“Is there anything in particular I need to wear?” Danny shakes her head.

“Not really. I get the feeling Carmilla just want to see you trying on a bunch of different dresses and critique you in them. You could probably get away with a normal evening dress. I mean, I’m not an expert, but it’s a charity gala. You don’t need to be in anything particularly fancy.” You look back at Carmilla and see Kirsch joining her at the couch. They exchange a few words, then he sits down next to her, so you turn your full attention back to Danny.

“Oh, alright.”

“Carmilla’s probably going to make you walk the red carpet with her, considering she’s actually making you go with her for some reason. So you’ll need to have your makeup done as well.” You want to ask her more about the _fucking red carpet no one’s told you about until now,_ but she taps her chin and continues. “Let’s start off with something small and not too fancy and work our way up until Carmilla’s satisfied.”

“Sounds good to me.”

* * *

 

 **It takes hours before** you put on something Carmilla likes. Danny gets one of the retail workers to come into the dressing room to help you try different things on with a more professional opinion. Danny leaves you with them to join Carmilla and Kirsch on the couch. You feel like you’re trying on wedding dresses in front of a picky family.

Danny had tossed you compliments on how you looked in everything you tried on and honestly it was kind of embarrassing. Kirsch just nodded and said you looked pretty, piggybacking on Danny’s encouraging comments. Carmilla on the other hand just sat with her arms crossed and shook her head in disapproval.

You were honestly ready to call it a day and just go in your work uniform. Carmilla insists you stay because the event starts at six and it was only three, despite Danny’s urging that the two of you needed to get going so you could get your makeup done.

You wonder if this is how it feels to be a celebrity about to walk the red carpet. And you think for the fourth or fifth time as the back of your dress is being zipped up that wow, you’re going to _walk a red carpet_. That’s something to cross off your bucket list.

You look in the mirror once. The dress is a maroon colored, sleeveless evening gown with a high neckline. A beaded sheer fabric, the beading styled in something that reminds you of angel’s wings stretching over your torso, wraps over a sweetheart bodice. It has a fitted waistline that unfolds to a knee length, flare skirt. You walk back out to where everyone is waiting with Kathy, the retail worker, on your heels.

“This one looks good.” Danny says for the twelfth time. (Yeah, her compliments have lost their effect.)

“Yeah.” Kirsch says with a nod. You feel bad for him because he completely lost interest after the third dress and he looks devastatingly bored. The only opinion that matters to you right now is Carmilla’s because you really want to impress her. She looks at you for a moment, then she stands and you take a step away from her because you have no idea what her intentions are.

“Come here.” She says, and you see both Danny and Kirsch look at each other, then at you and they shrug. Carmilla holds out a hand to you and you take her hand. Her other hand finds your waist and she pulls you to her. You can feel her breath on your face, you look up at her nervously.

“Hey.” You say. _Stupid_.

“Hey.” She replies, then she releases you. “We’ll take this one. Kirsch, get the car. Laura go change. I’ll go and get this paid for.” Carmilla leaves the three of you. Danny and Kirsch give you a bewildered look that you’re sure you’re mimicking back to them.

“Um, yeah, car.” Kirsch gets up and practically runs from the store. Danny stands and crosses her arms over her chest.

“Well, Hollis, I think you should go ahead and change. You and Carmilla still need to get prepped at makeup. Though I’m sure she’ll still make us fashionably late, even though we have three hours.” She shoos you back to the changing room. You can still feel Carmilla’s hand on your waist even though she definitely _wasn’t_ still touching you. Your hand also tingled where she’d been holding it.

It’s not like Carmilla hadn’t touched you before. There had been small brushes here and there, but it had never felt like she her touch had been _burning_ you. It hadn’t felt like her touch was bringing nerves you didn’t even know you had to life. You shed the dress and rub your hands against your thighs in an attempt to dissipate that feeling, but it doesn’t work.

Honestly, you’re not entirely sure if you want it to.

* * *

 

 **The red carpet is** a mess of lights flashing in your face and you swear the black spots in your vision don’t leave for hours afterwards. You hold onto Carmilla’s arm like a lost puppy, and she guides you along. When you’d seen her outfit you’d honestly thought she looked hot, she was always gorgeous of course and you’d be lying if you said you could ever get used to how stunning she was. Somehow she looked even better in what looked like a more natural outfit on her. She was in all black, aside from blood red heels. A black blouse that covered her entire chest, a blazer and skin tight leather pants. She had a handbag clutched between her fingers and she let you loop your arms in hers despite your small protest at what that would suggest.

“You’re not used to the flashing and I know you can’t really see, cupcake. Just shut up and hold onto me.” You can’t really argue with that, so you're clinging to Carmilla in a nearly blind state.

It’s not entirely unexpected she’s asked about the nature of your relationship by various business magazine reporters, and she tells them you’re a friend which is a surprise to you.

Since when were you and Carmilla _friends_? You don’t ask her about it, because you like hearing that a lot better than the expected _‘She’s just my personal assistant.’_

You sit at a table with Carmilla, Danny, Kirsch and Will. Dinner is some extensive fish meal that you’ve never heard of, but it tastes fantastic. You eat politely as possible sitting on Carmilla’s left. Kirsch is to her right and Will next to him. Danny is sitting on your left.

Some jazz band is playing background music and people are mingling about. You think to yourself that this might be the nicest, most formal event you’ve ever been to. You learn from Danny that the event had been planned by Karnstein Industries to raise money to fund their effort to provide help for single parents around the world. A thing they called _‘Global Parenthood.’_

Carmilla had been engaged in the party at first, happy to be talking to Will, but she’d let him go off with Kirsch a few minutes ago and was slowly looking more and more miserable. You want to ask if she’s okay, but you’re really not sure what to say.

You look over to Danny to ask her advice, but she’s gone. You hadn’t even seen her leave and you kind of want to scream. Then you hear silverware clanking together and turn to see Carmilla standing.

“Carmill—,” You start, but she turns from you and leaves. “Dammit.”

You stand and follow after her. If she hears you behind her, she doesn’t show it. You follow her until she’s outside. The cool summer air feels really good because it had been seriously hot inside with a couple hundred people meandering about. There’s not a single person in sight out here, so you call after her.

“Carmilla, wait.” She stops, which is kind of a surprise.

“Why did you follow me?” She asks. She doesn’t turn to face you, instead staring out at the intricate maze you didn’t know was at the location. You think someone could get lost in that hidden maze so easily without even trying. You look at Carmilla and her head is turned just slightly towards you, waiting for an answer.

“It’s my job.” You decide to tell her and she snorts.

“You’re off duty, sweetheart.”

“Okay, well, maybe I care.” You feel your heartbeat speed up a bit at the confession and you shake out your hands as Carmilla turns her head towards you. Then she sits down on the stairs and pats the marble steps beside her. “Aren’t you worried I’m going to mess up this dress?”

“Just sit down, Laura. Christ. I could afford to buy 20 of those dresses without putting a dent in my wallet.” You decide not to protest anymore and sit carefully next to her. “I don’t like parties much.” She admits and you look at her.

“Why not?”

“It’s a long story.” You don’t think she’s going to continue, but she does after playing with a crease in her leather pants. “A girl broke my heart when I was 18. No big deal.” She continues to poke at her pants, not looking at you and you lean back on the palms of your hands.

“I don’t know. Seems like kind of a big deal to me. No one deserves to have their heart broken.”

“I suppose not, but it happens to everyone.”

“That doesn’t make yours any less important.” She looks up at you and you feel the corner of your mouth turning up into a smile. She starts to return it, but then looks down at her knees. You nudge her gently with your elbow. “Oh come on. You’re allowed to smile. You’re not a robot.”

“How can you be sure of that?” You can tell she means it as a joke, but you can hear the underlying tone of sadness in her voice.

“Because no robot is as rebellious as you are. You’re a lot more than Karnstein Industries, Carmilla.” She’s silent for a minute, then she looks back up at you and tilts her head.

“What are you doing to me?” Now it’s your turn to be speechless, but she doesn’t give you a chance to respond. She stands and holds out a hand to you to help you up. “I think the dance is still going. Would you like to dance with me, creampuff?”

“Sure, Carm.” She raises an eyebrow at the shortened version of her name, but doesn’t protest the change. You take her hand and you can feel your skin starting to burn. It’s a good burn. Like how it feels to sit by a fireplace in the middle of a snowstorm. She leads you back inside where the dance floor is filled with couples spinning and moving together.

You’re overly aware of her arm wrapped around your waist and her hand on your hip as she leads you through the throng of bodies moving with the soft melody the band is playing. She stops once she finds a space for the two of you and turns to face you. Carmilla holds out a hand and you lace your fingers with hers and place your other on her shoulder while hers rests on your waist, mimicking your positions from earlier in the dress shop.

“Do you know how to dance, creampuff?” Your gaze hasn’t left hers since she’d turned to face you and you shake your head. “Well.” She pulls you against her so your body is flush against hers, then she leans into you to whisper into your ear, “Follow my lead.”

You do your best to follow her steps and it doesn’t take you long to fall into step with her, because Carmilla is an expectedly good lead. She spins you once or twice, and you enjoy the way she pulls you back against her chest way too much.

The two of you dance through a few songs, and you find it easy to let yourself pretend you are just two girls dancing together face to face, and chest to chest. With your fingers laced with hers, and one of your hands on her shoulder while one of hers is firm against your waist.

After a while, her nose presses against your hairline and you can feel her steady breathing against your skin. You want this moment to last forever. You’re sure if you’d been given the option, you could have danced all night.

 


	5. Stranded

_“We’re imperfect people trapped in an imperfect world until we get to that place beyond.”_ –Kathie Lee Gifford

* * *

 

 **After that night, Carmilla** is really nice to you. Like, _really_ nice to you. It’s refreshing getting a smile instead of a blank stare. It’s nice to have her ask you for things rather than demand them in that guarded voice. And you love it. The two of you get plenty of strange looks due to Carmilla’s change in attitude. But you ignore them because Carmilla really is a lovely person when she isn’t glaring.

After meeting her, you realize Danny is around the office a lot more than you’d known. Maybe you’re just blind to everyone else because of how invested you are in breaking through Carmilla’s walls. But you now often find Danny wandering around the Karnstein Industries building on her phone. You wave when you make eye contact with her and she’d give you a small wave back.

It felt nice knowing someone aside from Kirsch, Carmilla, and the various random people you eat with at lunch. She offers to eat with you a week after the gala and slowly it becomes a regular thing for Danny to meet you during your lunch break. Occasionally, Kirsch joined the two of you and that’s how you find out that she and Kirsch have a small rivalry.

They banter back and forth about things you don’t really pay attention to. You think it’s mostly flirting, though you’re sure they’d deny it heavily if you mentioned it to them. And you don’t want to make them uncomfortable, so you don’t mention it. However, they have no such qualms about teasing you about your relationship with Carmilla.

“You sure the two of you aren’t an item?” Danny would ask with a grin like she knew something you didn’t. “I saw you dancing with her _all night_ at the gala.”

“No,” you’d say, covering your discomfort by biting into whatever happened to be sitting in front of you. “Carmilla and I have a very professional relationship. We were just dancing for a little bit of fun. Stop reading so far into things.”

You don’t even convince yourself even though you _know_ nothing more is going on between you and Carmilla. Kirsch snorted his disbelief in your words beside Danny. And Danny would roll her eyes at you. It wasn’t a daily thing; the conversation only happened every now and then, but each time you find yourself questioning your responses more and more.

You feel very complicated about Carmilla. The gala had been three months ago and the teasing hadn’t even started to slow down in the slightest. It was approaching mid-October and it was getting closer and closer to the day Carmilla was going to inherit more money than you’d probably see in your entire life. And then she’d take on her awaiting position as chairman for Karnstein Industries. Plans for her inheritance party had begun at the end of August and were nearing the final stages. You heard things here and there about it, but you didn’t know much about the details. It hurt a little more knowing you wouldn’t be invited to attend. You were _just_ her personal assistant after all.

And while Carmilla had been letting you into her bubble a bit at the beginning of August just after the gala, she was starting to push you away again. You understood why, as soon as she was officially the head of the company, you were going to be let go.

There was no use in her getting close to you now, you’d be gone soon. Honestly, you didn’t want to go. You liked it here. You liked _her_. A lot more than you probably should. Your skin still burned when she touched you. If anything, the burning sensation when her skin met yours had intensified. You couldn’t ignore that feeling as much as you tried.

You had a crush on your boss. Easily classified: Worst. Crush. Ever.

Even if she _did_ like you too, it couldn’t work. You _knew_ that, but you couldn’t deny the way your heart would pound when she looked at you with those soft brown eyes of hers. You felt like an idiot. But it felt worth it when Carmilla was smiling at you.

* * *

 

 **You’re not really sure** when it started. When you’d gotten attached to Laura, but you did know it had to stop before it got too deep. You wouldn’t have an excuse to keep her around once you were officially head of the company. And you didn’t think you even wanted to drag her into this lifestyle.

You’d have to be blind not to see that Laura wasn’t meant for big business.

She was too sweet. She was too soft. She asked too many questions instead of just reacting to what was thrown at her. She always wanted to know _why_. She was always trying to learn more about whatever was in front of her.  You could tell she was meant for investigative journalism. She should be doing that, not writing notes and bringing you coffee.

Even though you want to (God, do you want to), you couldn’t keep her by your side selfishly.

You actually _cared_ about her. You could admit that much to yourself. You wanted to see her succeed. You’re not sure how you’d let Laura creep into your heart, but you wanted to keep her close to you. Knowing you had less than a month left with her was honestly a bit heartbreaking.

And to cope with that fact, you tried to keep her at a distance. And you were doing a horrible job. It made you feel something when she’d ask how you were doing every morning. And every time you tried to tell her not to stand so close to you, her arm would brush against yours and your stomach would flip.

This was ridiculous.

You could not believe you were being reduced to a pile of nerves just from contact with this girl. Even though you told yourself this over and over, when she gave you that sweet, dorky smile you couldn’t help but smile back at her.

You’d, more than once, caught yourself eyeing the small mole above the right side of her lip. And when she was standing a little too close to you, you would counting the light freckles splattered across the bridge of her nose. You somehow always catch yourself when you get to twenty five and felt thoroughly like an idiot.

And you weren’t oblivious. You were more than aware of the rumors that the two of you were fuck buddies. Which was embarrassingly far from the actual truth. Just brushing against her made you feel weak. If you had sex with her, you’re sure you wouldn’t ever be able to stay away from her.

No. You needed to separate from your feelings for Laura. It would not work out. And you couldn’t let yourself fantasize about it.

* * *

 

 **You’re sitting in the** food court eating with Danny when you find out that the incoming snowstorm was fast approaching.You weren’t an idiot. You’d heard it might reach New York, but the chances had been low it would get seriously bad considering it was still only mid-October.

Kirsch had come down with you and stayed with you until Danny arrived to keep you company, then he’d gotten something for Carmilla and gone back upstairs. Carmilla had seemed to be in a great mood today too, which was always a good thing. She’d let you go to lunch early while she worked on a few things in her office. You didn’t push her to find out what she was working on even though she usually never did any of her own work. You’d decided to try and distance yourself a tiny bit by trying not to ask as many questions.

Except asking about her day. Carmilla always smiled a little bit when you did no matter what her answer was. And that smile was not something you were going to stop trying to make appear.

You blink away your thoughts of your aloof, lazy (attractive) boss and look from the TVs to Danny who shifts uncomfortably beside you.

“I really hate snow.”

“How are you in the North but hate snow?” You ask and she rolls her eyes at you.

“Are you telling me I’m a traitor to my environment?” She asks and you nod.

“Exactly that.”

“Whatever, Hollis.” She checks her watch and stands. “Do you mind if I head out? I have to make a trip down to the PR Firm.”

“No, please. I’m fine by myself.” She gives you a hesitant look, then she nods and walks away from you. You watch her walk away and once she’s gone you bite into your packed lunch that your father still insisted on making you. His excuse being that ‘you couldn’t eat whatever junk they sold at the food court every day when he could make you perfectly good food at home.’

You didn’t like that he was still treating you like a child by packing a lunch for you. You were twenty-two and you’d be twenty-three in February. You could definitely handle making a meal for yourself. But his food _was_ really good, so you don’t complain to his face. Plus it saved you money on the probably overpriced food they sold.

You take your time eating, enjoying the chicken salad sandwich your father had made for you today. Twenty two and still eating lunches packed by your dad. How you’d gained any independence at all was definitely a wonder.

A few people you’d eaten with before slowly join your table and you make small talk with them until you’re finished. You wave them goodbye after tossing the wrapping of your sandwich into the trash and you head back upstairs.

* * *

 

 **You return to Carmilla’s** office and the door is slightly opened, which makes you think someone’s in there with Carmilla. But when you peek into the opening, Carmilla is hunched over her desk alone. She’s typing into her desktop with a pout on her face. It’s more of a distressed pout than a cute one you’d come to know, and you feel that tug in your chest you get every time she seems mildly upset.

You shake your head and knock on the door as you open it.

“Um, Carmilla?” You ask. Carmilla raises her eyes to you slowly. She doesn’t move at first, then her eyes widen a little and she looks back at her desktop and uses the mouse to click on a few things. You hear the familiar tone of the desktop shutting down and Carmilla stands.

She still doesn’t say a word to you as she stuffs a few things into a handbag and throws it over her shoulders.

She moves towards you quickly and you move backwards, causing the door to shut behind you.

“What took you so long?” Carmilla asks, not seeming too concerned about your personal space. Not that you honestly mind _too_ much when she invades your personal space, but a girl needed to breathe sometimes. Her hand presses against the door right next to your head and you look from where you’re eyelevel with her collarbone to her eyes. She raises an eyebrow indicating for you to answer her.

“Well, I was enjoying my food. But next time I’ll be sure to shovel it down my throat so I don’t keep your highness waiting.” Carmilla doesn’t react at all to your snarky comment, which is a surprise and kind of a disappointment.

Usually that would ensue some entertaining banter that would distract Carmilla from whatever had been bothering her.

You lift your hand to tuck your hair behind your ear and she grabs your wrist in her hand. You gasp (definitely not because it’s feels like her touch is lighting your skin on fire). When you scrunch your eyebrows and try to pull your arm away she holds your wrist to her chest.

“I need you to do something for me,” her voice soft and level. You look up at her and Carmilla’s lips are pressed together in a tight line as she looks down at you. Carmilla isn’t that much taller than you, but she’s always wearing some kind of heel that gives her an extra inch or two. You look down at your wrist because her tight hold is actually starting to get kind of painful. When she sees you wince, she releases you. “Sorry.”

“You’re apologizing?” This is the first time you’ve ever heard Carmilla apologize for anything, and you’re shocked.

“I mean..” She looks embarrassed at your observation and your lips curl into a small smile. “You looked like you were in pain and— Why am I explaining myself to you? I need you to help me get out of here.” You’re still lingering on that small ‘ _sorry_ ’ and definitely not paying attention to her. “Cupcake, are you even listening to me?”

“Sorry, what?” You say, physically shaking your head to clear your thoughts. It was honestly the nickname that had gotten your attention. As used to them as you were, there were times like now when she’d call you by one of them and it felt like it was grounding you.

“I need you to help me leave the building.” She repeats slower this time and her eyes are fixed on you in clear hope that you’re understanding what she’s asking you to do.

“Um, why?” You mumble and you want to facepalm at your strange need to always question everything instead of just _acting_. Carmilla just blinks once and then leans back and you realize you haven’t been breathing evenly while she’s been in your proximity. She seems to debate answering your question or demanding you just do what she says. Then she sighs and runs her fingers through her hair.

“Because I need to breathe. I feel suffocated here. I can’t do anything but sit behind that desk and read emails I don’t care about. Go to stupid meetings on things that mean nothing to me even though they should and I want to leave. And if you take me I know I won’t end up dragged back here before I’m ready to come back. And— God, why am I always answering all of your ridiculous questions?” You shrug, leaning back against the door and Carmilla bites the inside of her cheek. “Are you going to help me or not?”

“Of course I’ll help.” You poke at her chest with a finger, then you notice one of the buttons on her shirt is undone. You look up at Carmilla and she’s just watching you. You lick your lips nervously, then you lift your hands to button it. Carmilla stiffens beneath your fingers and you ignore it, unable to decide if it’s a good or bad sign. You straighten up her collar and look back up to meet her eye. “You couldn’t do a thing without me.”

“Ha ha. You’re hilarious, cupcake.” You toss her a smile and open the door for her. She steps past you and you close the door behind you.

“Where’s Kirsch?” You decide to ask.

“I sent him to run an errand for me that should give us maybe...” she checks the time on her phone rather than the expensive looking watch on her wrist. “Fifteen more minutes before he comes back looking for us.”

“Okay and how exactly am I supposed to be helping you?”

“Well,” She falters for a moment and then she continues. “There was a picture of your driver’s license in your application, so… I know you can drive.”

“Why do _I_ need to drive? Wait, do you not have your license?” You turn to her in disbelief as she strides beside you. She glares at you and it clicks in your mind. “Right. Of course not. Heiress who can call anyone to drive her wherever she needs to go. Duh.”

Carmilla steps into one of the elevators and you go in after her. She presses the button to the fourth floor and you tilt your head at her. She looks at you and raises her eyebrow in a fashion that clearly means, ‘ _what?’_

“Why aren’t we going to the first floor?”

“You and I both know a storm is coming and you need a coat. So I’m going to take two coats from the fourth floor. Sarah Jane won’t question me. You’ll wait there for me to come back and then we’ll go down the stairs to a back exit and get my car.”

“Well you sure do have this entire thing planned out, don’t you?” Carmilla snorts and doesn’t speak to you again until the elevator dings and the two of you step out onto the fourth floor. You hear Kirsch’s voice before you see him.

“What do you mean she’s not in her office?” His voice pauses and you can hear his footsteps coming towards the two of you. You look at Carmilla, but she’s eying a broom closet with dread in her eyes. “Well yeah I know that. Fuck. Her aunt is going to kill me.”

“We’re going to have to get in the closet.” Carmilla says and you shake your head.

“No.” You tell her. “No. I spent entirely too much time in the closet in high school to get back in now.”

“Don’t be an idiot.” Carmilla huffs out. “I meant the _actual_ closet.” She’s already pushing you towards it. With Kirsch getting closer, your protests were weakening. You stop fighting her when you can reach out and open the closet with a hand and you squeeze inside. Carmilla moves in after you and she presses against you as she closes the door behind her softly. She flips your positions so your back is against the door.

There are slits in the polished wood filtering in a little bit of light and they’re just big enough for Carmilla to look out of. It’s a tight squeeze. The closet isn’t too big and Carmilla moves slightly back against the wall but she’s still trapping you with both of her hands pressing against the door on either side of your head.

Your inability to see anything makes it a whole lot easier to focus on Carmilla’s body pressed against yours in the tight space of the closet. You can hear Kirsch jamming his finger against the elevator’s up button and cursing under his breath.

“Carmilla.” You breathe and she looks down at you.

“Hm?” She’s tense, you can feel it. So you say the first thing that comes to mind to take her mind off of the situation you’re in for a few seconds.

“Since we’re reenacting a romantic comedy,” You were so going to regret this joke. “Isn’t this the part when you get unexplainably drawn to me and we make out and end up caught?”

When you look up from her collarbone, she’s blushing. Not just blushing, her entire face is a deep red and she squirms against you.

“Stop talking.” She hisses after probably realizing there’s no way for her to shift away from you. Her reaction has a blush creeping onto your cheeks. That was definitely _not_ your best material. So you could scratch comedy off the list of things you were good at.

Kirsch’s voice disappears and the elevator doors close. Carmilla’s hand finds the door handle and the two of you spill out onto the carpet. She lands on top of you with her hips between your legs. At first you’re more focused on how hard you’d hit your tailbone on the marble floor, then you look up at the weight pressed against your body and you meet Carmilla’s wide eyes.

She leans away from you onto her knees and you slide awkwardly away from her. You know you’re blushing and Carmilla’s face reflects yours. But she just stands and she adjusts her bag on her shoulder before she offers a hand to help you up. You take it and brush yourself off, hoping you didn’t look as flustered as you felt.

“Don’t move and try not to look suspicious.” Then she leaves to go grab the two of you coats. You lean against the wall and let out a breath. That could have definitely gone better. On the bright side, there were four floors and a car checkpoint between you, Carmilla, and freedom. You were almost home free.

This also felt entirely too much like how you imagine a jailbreak might be (which it might very well be for Carmilla) with a little less intensity.

Carmilla returns, already putting on a long black peacoat. She hands you a shorter beige one and you put it on, but not without a few quiet complaints.

“You know, I _have_ a coat. I could have just gotten that one from the employee dressing room.”

“Stop complaining. This coat is worth more than what you’re making this week. So wear it with pride. Consider it a gift.” She gives you that smile you can’t say no to. With a sigh, you slide your arms the rest of the way into the coat. You plan on giving it back later because if it’s true that it’s worth more than your pay for the week, there was _no way_ you could accept it, even as a gift. You make a mental note not to get anything on it.

“Fine.” You tell her, and she grabs the arm of your coat between two of her knuckles and pulls you along with her towards the stairwell at the other end of the hall. You notice while you’re going down the stairs that Carmilla had changed out of her heels and skirt into a pair of ripped skinny jeans and combat boots. You don’t know if she changed her shirt as well (though you don’t see why she wouldn’t have) because you hadn’t been paying attention when she’d come out.

She looked like a normal civilian, which you guess was the point, but you’d never seen her in anything so… normal. You really do think she looks so much more natural in this outfit and you wish you could see her in things like this more. But you were more than aware that that was impossible.

But you have no problem admitting to yourself that she looks fantastic. She always did.

* * *

 

 **Carmilla leads you out** the back exit and to her car with strangely no trouble at all. She tosses you her keys after unlocking it and slipping into the front seat. You’re surprised you actually catch them and you get into the driver’s seat and start the car.

“Hey.” Carmilla says and you look at her. “Don’t fuck up my car.”

“You can’t even drive and you’re worried about _me_ messing up your car. If _you_ drove your car, you’d destroy it.” You back out of the parking space. “I don’t know how you’d function without me.”

You mean it as a joke but Carmilla rests her right elbow on her thigh and her cheek against her open palm looking at you with an unreadable expression, but a part of you wants to call it _affectionate_. “You and me both.”

You’re not blushing. You’re definitely _not_ blushing.

You’re stopped at the car checkpoint and the person, whose name you don’t bother to read, asks where you’re headed. You tell them you’re running an errand really quickly and Carmilla hides her face. They don’t question your explanation and let you go, telling you to be careful and to hurry back because the storm is supposed to get bad in a few hours. You tell them you will and drive out.

“Guess the news that you’re on the run hasn’t been spread to the car checkpoints yet.”

“Guess not, buttercup.” While you’d been focused on driving from the building, she’d apparently slipped on a pair of sunglasses and now she was gazing out the window. You turn from her back to the road, because you couldn’t look at Carmilla right now.

She’d distract you just by sitting there and looking unfairly perfect, and you’d end up crashing her car.

It’s already snowing pretty heavily now, with maybe an inch of snow already sticking to the ground. You glance at Carmilla, but she seems unconcerned. You ask her where she wants to go and she shrugs and tells you to take her to your favorite place to go when you have a lot on your mind.

“That’s all the way back in Brooklyn though.”

“I don’t care. Let’s go.” You drive in silence for only a few minutes. Then you find yourself talking again.

“Isn’t your mother going to be mad that I did this? Helped you leave?” She doesn’t answer you at first. Her silence worries you until she shakes her head.

“No. You won’t get in trouble for this. You’re _my_ employee. I’m the only one who can fire you or get cross with you and it actually mattering at all. Okay?” Carmilla’s reply feels too forceful. You spare a glance at her, but she’s not looking at you.

“Yeah, okay.” You sigh, turning onto the Brooklyn Bridge and into even more traffic. “Shit.”

“So, you _do_ curse.” You look at Carmilla again and she’s smiling at you smugly in that teasing way of hers. You rest your head against the steering wheel and groan because you absolutely _hate_ traffic.

* * *

 

 **It takes you forty** five minutes to drive across the bridge with traffic backed up from people trying to get home before the snow comes down hard. Which really should be an indication that this is a bad idea. You’re worried that you won’t be able to pass back over the bridge if the snow gets too bad and they decide to close the bridge.

But Carmilla tells you it’ll be fine. She sounds so sure of herself you have to believe her. You take her to your high school track field. School had closed early due to the inclimate weather. You hint to her that you two should head back, but Carmilla either doesn’t catch your hint or chooses to ignore it.

She’d been worried about leaving her car where you parked it because it was apparently a ‘really nice car’ and she ‘didn’t know know what kind of shenanigans went down in this neighborhood.’ It was honestly _just_ a car to you, but you promise her it’ll be fine where it is.

She makes you walk around the track with her twice and it’s honestly really relaxing. There’s a comfortable silence between the two of you. You always waitfor the silence to become awkward when you’re with Carmilla and neither of you are talking.

But it never does.

There are very few people who you can be with and just enjoy being in their presence. And, as it turns out, Carmilla is one of those people. She veers off the track suddenly and you change your step to follow her after a moment’s hesitation. She leans back against the fence lining the track field and you stand a few feet away from her.

“You should take off those sunglasses. You look unnatural.” You say and you can practically see her rolling her eyes through the dark lenses of her sunglasses. But she does as you ask, pulling the sunglasses from her face and sliding them into her pocket.

Carmilla is seriously beautiful. And, for whatever reason, it’s heightened in this picture perfect moment. Snow falling around her and white particles decorating the top of her head. Her bangs flowing just slightly in the light breeze. She lifts a hand to push them out of her eyes. They aren’t as vibrant as they would be under direct sunlight, but you still feel like you could get lost in those deep brown eyes of hers.

She looks at you and a smile tugs at her lip. The light-hearted look on her face makes her even more gorgeous. So much so that you involuntarily suck in a breath.

“Geez, cupcake. I know I’m a pretty girl, but do you really need to look at me like that?” It’s not as rude as you know Carmilla meant it to be. She actually does sound kind of embarrassed and you slide your hands into the pockets of your coat.

“Like what?”

“Like… Like how you look at me.”

“That tells me exactly nothing.” Carmilla shakes her head at you. Then she pushes off the fence and moves towards you. You bite your lip, remembering you were going to ask her a question before you’d been distracted by her once again. “What made you so upset that you had to leave?”

Carmilla stops walking towards you, pausing mid-step. Then she moves so she’s standing right in front of you. You have to tilt your chin up just slightly to look at her.

“I remembered that I officially take on my position in a month.” You’re surprised she’s actually sharing this with you. That she’s opening up. “My entire life has been leading up to this, and now that it’s almost here, it’s overwhelming.”

“Oh.”

“Mhmm. And I remembered that in a month I’ll have to say goodbye to you.” She admits and her hand lifts to cover her mouth as if that will stop the words that have already left her mouth.

“ _Oh._ ” You look down at your toes and lick your lips that suddenly feel too dry. “I think—I think I know how you feel. I don’t really want to say goodbye to you either, Carm.”

Her lips press together and she shakes her head. “Let’s head back.”

Despite the small moment you’d been having, you don’t see a good reason to argue with that. “Okay.”

* * *

 

 **The Brooklyn Bridge is** closed off when you go back to it and you want to kick something. It was closed due to the inclimate weather. You turn on the radio, sitting in Carmilla’s car facing the empty bridge.

“—ty inches of snow are expected to fall within the next few hours. That’s right folks, _twenty inches_.”

“Dammit.” Carmilla hisses beside you and you turn to her. “We were out too long.”

“Yeah.” You agree and she frowns at you. She pulls her phone from her pocket and turns it on. After a moment, her phone buzzes for a minute or two while it picks up all her notifications. “Someone was missed.”

“Of course I was.” She says and it’s the first smile she’s given you since you’d gotten in the car. She calls someone and they answer after a single ring. “Kirsch. Yes, I’m fine. No. I’m with Laura.”

She puts her phone between the two of you and puts it on speaker.

“Say hi Laura.”

“Hi, Laura.” You say.

“Cheeky. How cute.” Her smirk is infectious. “We’re both fine.”

“I was worried about you.” You hear Kirsch say and he pauses for a moment before he continues. “You should have told me where you were going. Or that you were going at all.”

“And let you report it back to my mother? No. You’re too loyal to her to be trusted with getting me out of there for a bit of breathing time.”

“She’s pissed at me.” He says, and he sounds so sad. Carmilla actually looks guilty for a moment.

“It’s my fault. I’ll explain that to her when I get back. I promise.”

“Fine.” Kirsch says. “Where are you staying?”

“I’m going to stay with Laura until the storm blows over.”

“Alright. Please stay safe. I’ll tell your mother.”

“Great. Bye, Kirsch.” She hangs up and turns to you.

“When did we agree you were going to stay with me?” You ask her.

 


	6. Too Close

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Using this note to wish a happy belated birthday to BlueSkyMournings! Thank you for all your reviews and I hope you had a good day yesterday. <3

_“You will always fall in love, and it will always be like having your throat cut, just that fast.”_ – Catherynne M. Valente, _Deathless_

* * *

 

 **You hadn’t planned to** take Carmilla anywhere else. It only made sense to take her to your house with you trapped in Brooklyn. But despite your plans, Carmilla telling Kirsch that she was staying with you didn’t leave you any other choice. So you turn from the Brooklyn Bridge and drive the familiar path back to your father’s house.

Is it normal to be this nervous bringing your boss home? After all, that _is_ all Carmilla is to you. Technically, she’s _just_ your boss. But you hadn’t brought a girl home since high school. And that relationship clearly hadn’t lasted. And none of your college flings had felt permanent enough to introduce them to your father.

Yet here you are bringing Carmilla home. It almost feels too intimate. Carmilla didn’t even like you like that. And she was clearly only choosing to go home with you because there was no other options for her, right?

Right? You have to ask.

“Why doesn’t your mother send, like, a squad or something out here take you back home?” The snow is starting to fall a little heavier now. There was salt on the ground so the roads are mostly covered in slush, but with the snow starting to build up it was getting extremely difficult to drive. So you drive a pace only rivaled by a snail.

“She’ll probably have me stay here as a type of punishment for running away in the first place.” Carmilla switches from her brooding out of the window and starts flipping through the radio stations. She lets out a groan of disapproval at each one. You don’t respond to her answer to your question, but after ten stations her groaning starts to get on your nerves.

“What is your problem?” You ask, knocking her hand away and turning off the radio.

“I can’t believe the garbage they play on the radio.” Carmilla’s lower lip sticks out just slightly as she pouts and glares out the window. You stare a little too long, then remember you’re driving on slush and choose to focus, probably too hard, on the road.

“I don’t know, I kind of like Taylor Swift.” You’re only a few blocks from your house now. If Carmilla could just stop distracting you, maybe you could possibly get there safely.

“Of course you do.” She deadpans and you glare at her, taking your foot off the gas so you can glare at her and not worry about swerving violently off the road.

“Now what is _that_ supposed to mean?” She doesn’t give you an answer and you huff indignantly. For someone so gorgeous, she was entirely too infuriating. You glare through Carmilla’s headlights and see your father’s house on your left. His car is already parked outside on the curb, and you pull in behind him. “Well, we’re here.”

Carmilla looks at past you to your house. You watch her blank expression curl into a smirk. “Cute.”

“Yeah, cute.” Carmilla meets your eye and you can’t help but be a bit defensive and disappointed by her words. “I’m sure it doesn’t compare to your mansion, but it’s home.”

“Cute wasn’t meant as an insult, sweetheart.” You look into her eyes, searching for any sign of sarcasm. You only find a sincere apology in her eyes and you sigh. Carmilla wasn’t trying to purposely antagonize you.

This time.

“Okay.” You unbuckle your seatbelt and get out of the driver’s side. Carmilla doesn’t move at first and you lean back into the car. “What are you waiting for, princess? It’s cold.”

“I—” Carmilla looks at the door, then at you. Then she flushes red and gets out from her side. She slams the door behind her and you realize that she was probably waiting for someone to open her door out of habit, and now she was embarrassed.

Your smile to yourself at how cute embarrassed Carmilla was is interrupted by an onslaught of wind and snow. You lift a hand to shield your eyes. The wind is blowing a lot harder than it had been while you’d been in the car. You glance at Carmilla and watch her put her sunglasses on as a shield from the snow. You roll your eyes. Of course she found an excuse to put them back on despite it getting dark.

You stumble through the snow to Carmilla and link your arm with hers. Hers tightens just slightly around yours and you lead her up the stairs to your front door. You paw through your pockets before you realize you’d left all your belongings but your cell phone back at the office since all Carmilla had brought you was a coat.

“Shit.” You hiss.

“What?”

“Well since _someone_ dragged me from the office without letting me get my things, I don’t have my key.”

“Oh.” You glare at her and she’s just smiling. She shrugs. “Oops.”

You roll your eyes and release her arm, crouching to retrieve the spare key from under the welcome matt.

“Cute.” Carmilla comments.

“Shut up.” Did she _ever_ stop with the snarky comments? You unlock the door and are assaulted by the smell of hot cocoa and cookies. You sigh appreciatively, hoping there’s some there for you. Your father always knew how to make your cocoa.

“Dad? I’m home.” You call out as the two of your step inside. You pull the door closed behind you and glance at Carmilla who’s looking around with her mouth slightly open in some kind of childlike wonder. Your eyebrows scrunch together in confusion, but you decide not to question it. “And we have company.”

“Company?” It takes him a minute, but he emerges from the kitchen in a dirtied apron and you want to facepalm. God, he was embarrassing. You’re not even sure why you care so much what Carmilla thinks of you, your dad, and where you live. But you _do_. “Who’s this?”

“Dad. This is my boss, Carmilla Karnstein.” You gesture to her. Carmilla looks from where she’s looking at the coat hook to you. You nod towards your dad and she raises her hand in a small wave.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Hollis.” She says in one of the sweetest tones you’d ever heard from her and your throat suddenly feels very dry. Your father wipes his hands on his apron and approaches her quickly. He holds out a hand for her to shake. She does and he grins.

“Firm grip. Very nice. And, please, call me Matthew. Go ahead and take off your coat. It’s warm enough in here.” Carmilla nods and removes her coat. You do the same. Your dad is being his usual friendly self, but you keep giving Carmilla side glances to gage her reaction to everything. If she’s bothered by it, she doesn’t show it.

“Thank you, Matthew.” She says with a sweet smile. He grins at her use of his first name. You hang up your coat and take Carmilla’s from her to do the same. Carmilla pulls her boots off and you kick off your flats. Then you follow Carmilla and your father down the three stairs that lead into the living room. From there, there’s an opening leading into the kitchen.

Carmilla looks around as if she’s trying to memorize every single aspect and crevice of your father’s house.

“How did you two end up stuck out here in the first place?” Your father asks, taking your attention from staring at Carmilla. You both look at him, then at each other. She gives you indication she’s going to speak so you start to open your mouth to explain. Then Carmilla cuts you off.

“I had a meeting out in Brooklyn, and the snow got too bad before we could get back to the company building. So Laura offered to let me stay here until it blew over,” she explains. Which is not at all true, but you don’t contradict her.

That scenario was a lot better than, _‘I asked Laura to help me sneak out Karnstein Industries. Then we got stuck out here, so we didn’t have a choice but to come back to here.’_

“That’s too bad.” He frowns and plays with his mustache. You should probably tell him to shave while you were thinking about it. His scruff was starting to look a little messy. “Well, the more the merrier, right? Go ahead and make yourself at home on the couch. I’ll bring you two some cocoa. You look like you’re freezing.”

Your toes are cold from having to wade through the snow in just a pair of flats, so you sit down with your calves underneath you in an effort to warm them up. Carmilla sits down next to you and you watch her assess her surroundings. She meets your eyes after a couple minutes and smirks at you. Again.

“Cute.” You roll your eyes, just barely holding back an annoyed groan. You were at home now. Your father wouldn’t appreciate you being “rude” to your boss.

“Yeah, my dad has a nice place.” You mutter, looking down at your thighs as you slide your hands underneath yourself.

“I wasn’t talking about the house.” Her smirk shifts to a small smile when your eyes snap from your thighs to look at her.

Before you can say anything to probably embarrass yourself, your father walks back in with two mugs of hot cocoa. You take one as it’s offered to you and he hands the other to Carmilla. She takes it with a nod of thanks.

Then he plops down between the two of you. You feel a rush of anger at him cutting you off from her for about five seconds. Then you’re angry that you’d gotten angry.  Why should you care that your father is sitting between you and Carmilla? It’s not a big deal.

You look past your father to Carmilla and you feel your heart clench at the panicked look she gives you. You push away your anger and give her an encouraging smile. Carmilla shakes her head at you but relaxes back into the couch. You’re definitely not staring as she takes a sip of her cocoa or when her face sours right after she swallows.

“This is really sweet.” She licks her lips and looks at the drink in confusion.

“Oh I’m sorry. Laura likes it with lots of marshmallows melted into it, so I just always make it that way. Is it too sweet for you? I can make another cup for you without all the marshmallows.”

“No, no. Please don’t trouble yourself.” Her manners surprise you and you look past your father to her. Her eyes shift from him to you as she continues. “I like sweet.”

You know you’re blushing and you cover it by drinking a few big gulps of the warm liquid. Carmilla laughs to herself and she takes another sip of hers. You don’t miss her tiny grimace in the small moment your father closes his eyes to laugh.

“Okay then.” He reclines on the couch and starts asking Carmilla questions about the company’s products. You tune them out, not exactly interested in listening to them talk about how they made their ace bandages. Instead you think about that look Carmilla had given you.

_I like sweet._

Flirting was just Carmilla’s style. Right?

You weren’t completely oblivious. You were more than aware of Carmilla not so subtle flirting that had been going on for months at this point. Even when she’d been halfway pushing you away, she would still throw you little comments that left your flustered.

But those weren’t serious advances, right? Of course they weren’t. Because Carmilla definitely _wasn’t_ actually interested in you romantically. Or even just physically. Not that you thought you weren’t good enough for her but Carmilla could have anyone she wanted. People that wouldn’t have to leave her in a month…

“How’s having Laura as an employee working out for you, by the way?” Hearing your name tunes you back into the conversation. You try not to look like you’re paying attention now. You stare at the bottom of your now empty mug while Carmilla is silent beside your father. You decide to excuse yourself and you stand to walk to the kitchen to refill it.

Your escape plan is flawed because you can still hear them from the kitchen. And despite everything within you that doesn’t want to eavesdrop, you find yourself straining to hear them clearly.

“Laura is a good employee.” Carmilla finally starts. You hear her pause briefly before continuing. “She’s—Well she’s the best personal assistant I’ve had so far.” Your mug is clenched tight in your fingers. You’re squeezing so hard for a moment you think you might break it, so you set it down. “I think I’ll miss her when she has to go.”

“Does she really have to go, then?” Your father asks and you hear Carmilla sigh.

“Yes. She does. I wish she didn’t. But she does. I won’t have any need for her then. I’ll have other people who are working for me. _My mother’s_ people. Once I take over her position, her employees will become my employees.”

“That’s… That’s too bad.”

“It is.” They’re quiet after that and now that they’re not talking about you, you realize you haven’t filled your mug up yet. You do quickly and walk back into the living room sipping your cocoa. Your father isn’t on the couch. That leaves a somber looking Carmilla sitting with her arms crossed over her chest and her still half-full mug sitting on the floor beside the couch.

“Hey.” You greet her and she looks up at you. Carmilla stares at you for a moment then she turns her eyes back to the blank screen of your television.

“Hey.” You stand holding your mug awkwardly for a moment. Carmilla just looks sad. So you say the first thing you can think of to take her mind off of whatever might be bothering her.

“So I know it’s early.” You move to stand next to her and take a quick sip of your drink. She looks up at you as you swallow and continue. “But I was thinking about where you were going to sleep. And there’s only two bedrooms upstairs. My dad’s and mine. Well mine is really a guest room. So I was thinking you could sleep in my bed and I’ll stay down here on the couch.”

“No. That won’t do.” Carmilla shakes her head. “I made you take me out here and got us trapped in Brooklyn. I’ll take the couch.”

“No.” You protest. “You’re the guest. You get the bed.”

“I’m the guest and I want to sleep on the couch.” Carmilla glares at you and you roll your eyes. This was a stupid argument. You know it. And you know Carmilla knows it. You’re also kind of mad Carmilla won’t just agree to sleep on your bed when you were _trying_ to be a good host.

“It’s not like my bed is dirty or anything. Do you just not want to sleep on my bed? You can just say so.”

“I’m trying to be a good guest by not making you fuck up your back by laying on this couch. I don’t care how small you are, it won’t be comfortable.” She’d gotten a bit louder with that response and you glance at the stairs.

“Watch your language. My dad doesn’t like profanity.”

“… Sorry.”

“Look, it’s really sweet that you don’t want to sleep in my bed because you’re worried about me or whatever. But if it’s that big of a deal to you, we could sleep together.” You pause and she raises an eyebrow at you. You flush red and quickly explain yourself. “Not like _sleep_ together, sleep together. I mean like actually going to sleep. You know, just in the same bed because it’s a queen and it’s big enough for both of us to be on either side without really touching. Not that I _mind_ touching you. It’s just—,” _You’re rambling, Laura._ “Yeah.”

“You are the most ridiculous person I know.” Carmilla’s tone is snarky, but the smile on her face is one of fondness. You push your hair behind your ear out of nervousness more than it being in your way. “Fine. We’ll share the bed. Completely platonically.”

“Yeah, totally platonically.” You agree.

* * *

 

 **You spend the next** ten minutes going back and forth with Carmilla about what you’re going to watch on television to entertain yourselves the rest of the afternoon. The disagreement mostly consists of Carmilla being difficult and complaining every time you stop on a channel. You’re sure she’s doing it for the sole purpose of dragging a reaction out of you.

She lets you stop on ABC Family where they’re playing Halloween themed movies. Your father brings down blankets for the two of you after a couple hours while he goes into the kitchen to make dinner.

Carmilla lays her head on your lap sometime around the second movie and you try to mentally calm the racing of your heart as she presses against you.

“You make a good pillow.” She says and you laugh.

“I’ve been told.” You glance down and see her smile. You hide yours beneath your blanket.

“Oh yeah? How many girls have you had in your lap, creampuff?”

“I— Enough to know I make a pretty good pillow.” You don’t want to answer her question mostly because that just felt so personal. It takes her a while to respond, but she does eventually.

“Interesting.” You can hear your father in the kitchen and after a while the smell starts to trickle into where you and Carmilla are lounging and your stomach growls. Thankfully, Carmilla doesn’t mention it aside from a smile tugging at her lips.

“Ladies, if you’re hungry, dinner’s ready.” You pull your fingers from where they’d at some point gotten tangled in Carmilla’s hair. (Seriously, how had that happened? You don’t remember touching her aside from her head in your lap.) Carmilla sits up and stretches and you stand. She then follows after you as you make your way into the kitchen.

Your father has a pasta dish laid out on the table with a side of garlic bread and potatoes. You all serve yourselves and you note that Carmilla doesn’t grab herself a piece of garlic bread.

“Are you a vampire?” You tease and she laughs.

“Oops. You caught me.” Her response earns her a chuckle from your father.

“I suppose I’ll need to tie you up now to keep you from preying on innocent girls, huh?” You glance at your father who just looks entertained at your banter.

“It doesn’t work that way.” Carmilla’s smiling and you have to smile back.

You like this Carmilla a lot. Careless Carmilla with nothing to worry about but stuffing her face with pasta. She was a lot more playful here without the professional setting keeping her from being whoever she wanted. She’s not pretending to be hardass like she does at the office. She’s just a regular girl here.

And a part of you hopes the bridge isn’t open tomorrow, because you’d really like to spend another day with her.

* * *

 

 **Sleeping in the same** bed as Carmilla is exactly as awkward for you as you expected it to be. She follows you into your room and looks around with her oh-so-critical eye. You look at her, expecting another “ _cute_.” But it doesn’t come.

You excuse yourself to the bathroom to brush your teeth and you pull one of the spares from under the sink and place it on the counter for Carmilla to use. You look into the mirror and steel your nerves. It was just sleeping. You and Carmilla were just going to sleep in the same bed. This was totally not a big deal at all. You take one last deep breath and go back into your room.

You swing the door open without knocking and find a very undressed Carmilla standing beside your bed. She’s standing with her back to you in a bra and underwear that are so tiny that shouldn’t even qualify as underwear. You stare unabashedly open-mouthed at her and when she turns, your mouth snaps shut.

“Um—”

“Christ, cupcake. At least close the door.” You do immediately more out of shock than anything else.

“You weren’t going to sleep in just that, were you?”

“Something wrong with this, buttercup?”

“Well not _wrong_ necessarily. But I do have pajamas you can borrow.” Carmilla sits on your bed and you try not to focus on her clothing… Or lack thereof.

“Fine.” She doesn’t move from that spot while you dig into your drawers and pull out a pair of green flannel bottoms and an old black tee. You hand them to her and, despite your embarrassment, you tell her to take off her underwear too so that you can wash them. That way she’ll have some to wear tomorrow. (You’re sure she wouldn’t want to wear a pair of your used ones.)

Thankfully she doesn’t make any snarky comments. You leave her to change in your bedroom while you change in the bathroom. You sigh at the loss of one of your favorite pairs of flannel pajama bottoms, but you don’t mind letting Carmilla have them as much as you probably should.

You return to your room and knock this time before you come in. Carmilla is already lounging on your bed, having claimed your favorite pillow as hers apparently since she was already laying on it. You slide into the bed and pull your comforter over yourself. Carmilla slips under with you.

“We should probably go to sleep now. In case the bridge opens tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” is all she says in response. You turn off the lamp next to you and turn your back to Carmilla. Silence takes the room within seconds, but you break it to say one last thing.

“Goodnight, Carmilla.” You’re met with silence, then you feel her back press against yours. You stiffen at first, but you relax against her.

“Night, cupcake.”

* * *

 

 **You both wake up** early to see if the roads are safe enough for the bridge to be opened back up. It had stopped snowing but you’re sure the snow had piled up to be halfway up your calves. Carmilla follows you downstairs sleepily. A small part of you is happy to find that she actually _doesn’t_ look completely flawless after just waking up. A stronger part of you finds her glare endearing and her messy hair absolutely adorable.

“There is nothing like a good night’s sleep. Right, sleepyhead?” You give her a grin and she glares at your chipper tone.

“No.” She grumbles, and your smile widens as you click on the television to check on the state of the roads. Apparently someone thought your selfish wish to spend another day with Carmilla worth granting because the roads are still closed.

Carmilla doesn’t look too upset at the prospect of more sleep. She just shrugs and trudges back upstairs. You shut off the television and follow her at a slow pace. When you get to your door, Carmilla is already curled up, clutching the yellow pillow she’d claimed last night in her arms. Her nose is pressed deep into it and she’s already deep asleep in your bed.

Why did she have to be so cute all the time without even trying?

* * *

 

 **You wake a few** hours later facing Carmilla with her nose nearly touching yours. Somewhere in the few extra hours of sleep, you’d shifted towards her and ended up sharing your pillow with her. You can feel her breath against your face and you scoot away from her. You slide out of the bed as carefully as you can manage.

You get that urge to take a picture again because Carmilla looks so cute. This is a moment that should be documented. Her face relaxed and her hair fanning out over that pillow…

You grab a change of clothes from your drawers and leave to take a shower. You come downstairs just as your father is coming inside and setting a shovel down by the entrance.

“Hey, Laura. Sleep well?”

“Yeah thanks.”

“Well you girls stay safe and enjoy yourselves. I’m going out with some other people in the neighborhood to clear out some driveways. Then we’ll probably stop at someone’s house to warm up. I’ll be back sometime this afternoon.”

This was one of the reasons you really loved your dad. He’d just volunteer his time off to go do things like shoveling. He was genuinely a really good person. You wave to him as he wraps a scarf around his face and heads back out. Then you sit down on the couch and hope you can find something you haven’t seen on Netflix to watch until Carmilla decides to get up.

* * *

 

 **Carmilla doesn’t wake up** until a little after noon and she stumbles sleepily down the stairs.

“Hey, cupcake.” You turn from the television to her. Her hair is thrown up in a messy bun now, but she still has that adorably sleepy look on her face. “Where’s your shower?”

“Oh! I’ll show you.” You get up from the couch and move past her up the stairs and show her into the upstairs bathroom.

“I wish I’d known this was right here last night. It was annoying running down the stairs to pee.”

“Didn’t think to just check all the doors?” You ask her

“Well, I know better than to open random doors, sweetheart. You never know what you’re going to see.” You roll your eyes but grab a towel for her from the closet. She takes it from your hands with a good natured smile. “Aren’t you the ever gracious host?”

“It’s my pleasure, Ms. Karnstein.” You half bow and she shakes her head. That radiant smile hasn’t left her face and it makes you feel warm. “I haven’t finished drying your things. But I guess you can borrow one of my shirts if you want to. I didn’t wash your jeans so those are wearable if you don’t mind that.”

“That’s fine.” Carmilla sets the towel down on the sinks and moves inside the bathroom to turn on the shower. Then she turns back to you. “They don’t all come in bright colored button downs, do they?”

“ _No_. I own black.” You nudge her and she turns away from you.

“Alright. Go away so I can shower. Well, unless you want to join me.” Carmilla raises an eyebrow suggestively and you can feel yourself blushing. Just when you thought maybe Carmilla might relax on the flirting for a bit.

“Um, no thanks.”

“Your loss.” She shrugs and shuts the door behind her. You glare at the door for probably too long until you hear her start to hum to herself from inside.

Carmilla was such an asshole. Flirting with you just to see you flustered.

Why did you have a crush on such an _asshole_?

* * *

 

 **You hear a loud** _‘fuck’_ from upstairs about forty minutes later and you rush upstairs to investigate. What you see is Carmilla with a towel wrapped around her still wet body, groping blindingly at your carpet.

“Um?” She looks up at the sound of your voice and squints.

“Laura?”

“Yes?”

“Sorry. I can’t see.” She explained. “I dropped my contact.”

“Wait, you wear contacts?”

“Sure do, creampuff.” She huffs and stands. “Apparently, not today though. Can you do me a favor?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“There should be a glasses case in my bag. I don’t feel like groping around blindly for it so can you grab them for me?”

“Oh yeah. Of course.” You find her purse sitting on your dresser and find her glasses case. She holds out a hand and your press the case into her hands. She opens it and slides on the pair of glasses you didn’t know existed.

“You wear glasses.”

“Yes. Stop making a big deal of it.”

“Right. Okay.” You turn on your heel and go back downstairs with this new information in mind.

* * *

 

 **Carmilla comes back downstairs** twenty minutes later in one of your old hoodies from high school and her ripped skinny jeans. She’s wearing a pair of your fuzzy socks that you’d left for her. You stand when she reaches the bottom.

“ _Finally_. Let’s go.”

“Go?”

“Yeah, we’re going to go walk over to my friend’s house for lunch because we can’t drive and I don’t want to sit here all day.”

“Why in the world would I want to go visit your friends?”

“Well I guess you can stay here by yourself then, party pooper.” Carmilla stands back for a moment and watches you put on your boots and grab your house keys. As you start to put on your coat, she groans and moves towards the door to start putting on her boots.

You smile to yourself because you’d known Carmilla would follow you as soon as you started getting ready to leave without her. Once you’re both bundled up, (her a little less than you because she claims the layers made her uncomfortable) you make the twenty minute walk to Lafontaine and Perry’s apartment complex. You hadn’t told them you were bringing Carmilla with you, or that she was even staying with you, for the sole purpose of surprising them.

When you buzz up to them, you feel Carmilla’s eyes on you. But when you look back at her, she’s already burying her face into the scarf she’d grabbed from your coat closet. You’re let inside and Carmilla follows you up to the third floor. You knock on their door once and Perry immediately opens it for you.

“Hi, Laura.” Perry pauses when she sees Carmilla and her face twists in mild confusion. “Um— I’m sorry, I don’t think we’ve met before.” Perry tilts her head at Carmilla. There’s one strand of curly hair out of her bun, and it swings distractingly in her face.

“No, we haven’t. I’m—”

“Is that Carmilla?” You hear Lafontaine ask from inside the apartment and they’re at the door beside Perry in seconds.

“Carmilla? As in your _boss_ Carmilla?” Perry asks, eyes wide in surprise. “Why didn’t you tell us you were bringing her with you?”

“It was a surprise. Carmilla, these are my friends, Lafontaine and Perry.” They wave their hands respectively. “Lafontaine, Perry, this is Carmilla.”

“Nice to meet you, uh, Ms. Karnstein.” Perry holds out a hand to Carmilla and she shakes it.

“You two can just call me Carmilla. I promise I won’t bite your head off for it.” They both smile at that and move aside to let the two of you in. You shed your coat and boots, leaving them by the front door and Carmilla follows your example.

“You really should have told us Carmilla was coming.” Perry tells you again while you follow her into their kitchen/dining room. “If I wasn’t me, she wouldn’t have had anything to eat.”

“But I _know_ you’re you and that you’d make extra like you always do. So what are we eating?” Perry shakes her head at you, but gestures for you to sit. You see Lafontaine lead Carmilla to their couch and they sit down together. Carmilla looks apprehensive at first, but then Lafontaine says something that makes her smile and she relaxes. You can feel Perry staring at you and you look up at her.

“What?” She was looking at you in the calculated motherly way of hers and you squirm just slightly under her gaze.

“Do you have a crush on her?” Were you really _that_ obvious?

“What? No, I don’t—” You lean back against a counter trying to look unaffected by that accusation, but the heat on your cheeks betrays you.

“You’re a horrible liar.” Perry sits down at the kitchen table and pats the seat next to her with a kind smile. You slump into the seat and glance back at Carmilla and Lafontaine to make sure they’re too preoccupied to listen to you about to pour your heart out.

“You don’t understand. I _can’t_ like Carmilla. I’ll just end up getting my heart broken.”

“Why would you think that?” Perry is an insanely good listener. When you talked to her, you really felt like she was listening and that she really cared.

“We’re too different. We’re from two different worlds. It would never work out.”

“Don’t say that.” Perry tells you and you look from your fisted hand in your lap to her. “I understand how you feel. I thought I couldn’t like Lafontaine, because I’ve known them since we were kids. And I didn’t want to ruin our friendship by falling in love with them, but it happened. We can’t help who we love, Laura.”

“I don’t—” _Not the point_. “Okay.”

“I don’t know Carmilla or what she’s like, but you do.” Perry squeezes your knee encouragingly. “Maybe she’ll surprise you.”

“Maybe.” Perry had encouraged you more than you wanted to admit. You felt a lot better about your crush and Perry pats you knee once before she stands. “Lafontaine, Carmilla?” They stop talking and turn to her. “Me and Laura are ready to eat, so if you two are done?”

They share a glance and Lafontaine shrugs, so they stand and make their way over to the table. Carmilla sits down next to you and her gentle smile says a lot of things.

But it felt the most like a thank you.

* * *

 

 **You end up spending** a few hours in Lafontaine and Perry’s apartment just catching up. Carmilla tells them some gossip from the company that they enjoy even if they aren’t sure exactly who she’s talking about. Lafontaine tries to get some inside information on any new products the company has that Carmilla skillfully avoids answering.

After a lot of encouragement from you, she draws them a cartoonish doodle of the two of them before you leave. It’s of Perry picking up Lafontaine and a speech bubble saying, ‘I love my person’ above her head and Lafontaine has hearts where their eyes should be.

You think it’s the cutest thing you’ve ever seen. You’ve seen her range of drawing skill from that brief peek at her sketchbook. You think it’s amazing that Carmilla could draw such realistic drawing and also these little cartoons. Lafontaine and Perry tell Carmilla not to be a stranger and she gives them a short wave but makes no promises. Which you understand is mostly because she’d never see them again and that this was a onetime thing.

You walk home trying not to dwell on that fact and Carmilla walks behind you in silence. You make it a little more than halfway home before Carmilla starts complaining.

“I’ve never done this much walking in my life.” She whines.

“I don’t believe you.”

“Uuuuuugggghhh.”

“Carmilla, seriously? Are you like five?” You stop hearing the sloshing of her boots beside you and turn to see she's stopped a couple feet behind you.

“Just leave me here. I’d rather freeze to death.” She wants something. You know it. She was complaining and acting like this to get something from you.

“Seriously? We’re like seven minutes away.” Carmilla stares at you for a moment then her face breaks into a smile.

“Carry me.” You look at her like she’s crazy.

“What?”

“Carry. Me.” She repeats.

“You’re insane.”

“Fine. Leave me here then.” You look at Carmilla for a few seconds, then you sigh. She was so annoying but she couldn’t be _that_ heavy. And if it got you home faster, you guess you can deal with carrying the diva for a few minutes.

“Come on, you big baby.” You stand in front of her and crouch down. She doesn’t move for a moment like she can’t believe you agreed to this, then she climbs onto your back. It’s almost difficult between your layers and hers, but you wrap your arms around her thighs and her arms wrap around your neck. “I deserve a paycheck bonus for this.”

Carmilla snorts, and you carry her the rest of the way back to your house. You go back to the comfortable silence and you can’t find a single part of you that can be mad at her. Just because this was Carmilla. When you get to your front door she slides off you back with a thankful pat to your shoulder blade. You find your keys in your pocket and unlock the door. You can hear the sounds of a piano coming from upstairs and sigh. You dad was playing.

“Do you own a piano?” Carmilla asks. When you look at her, her eyes are filled with longing and it makes your heart pound a little too hard in your chest.

“My dad has one in his study upstairs. He plays it every now and then.”

“Really?” She looks like years have peeled off of her. You decide you _have_ to take her upstairs to see it. You shed your layers quickly and Carmilla follows your lead. Then you lead her upstairs. You knock on the open door, and your dad turns to you.

“Oh, hey Laura. Carmilla.”

“Hi, Matthew.” Carmilla says. He gives her a smile and then looks at you.

“What’s up? Something wrong?”

“No, no. Nothing like that. Carmilla just wanted to see the piano.”

“Oh! Well you two can go ahead and look at it all you’d like. I need to get started on dinner anyway.”

He stands and leaves the room, patting you on your shoulder before he moves past you. Carmilla moves towards the piano and brushes her fingers over the keys.

“Are you telling me drawing isn’t your only talent?” Carmilla flashes you a smile and taps haphazardly on the keys.

“No, but I didn’t exactly learn to play piano by choice.” She admits.

“What do you mean?” Carmilla sits and pats the space next to her, so you sit down. She settles her fingers on the keys. After counting to herself for a short moment and bobbing her head in a sort of metronome, she starts to play. You don’t know the song, but it’s soothing to you and you feel your entire body relax.

“Maman thought it would be good for me to play the piano when I was younger.” She explains as her fingers move in practiced ease. “I still love the instrument. The lessons aren’t one of my fondest memories though.” Her fingers continue to move and she watches the keys. And you watch her face as she plays. You notice that when she’s not talking, her jaw clenches just slightly as if anticipating something unpleasant. “My teacher would smack my knuckles when I missed a note.”

“That’s horrible.” Your heart drops imagining a younger, smaller, more innocent Carmilla sitting at a piano bench and missing a note. And that little girl having her knuckles hit for the mistake.

“It happens,” Carmilla says. She finishes the song and her fingers linger on the keys. Then she turns her gaze back to you.

“One of my only memories of my mother is when she and I used to come in here and listen to dad play,” you find yourself saying, and Carmilla’s eyes don’t leave yours as you speak. “She was in a car accident when I was four. My dad says the doctors told him it was instant and that she didn’t feel any pain. Her chest hit the steering wheel and it was over like that. I don’t know if I believe that.” You lower your eyes, unable to hold the intensity of Carmilla’s stare. “How would they know if she felt any pain or not? Even if it _was_ instantaneous, in that brief moment, she could have felt all the pain in the world.”

“Hey.” You look up at Carmilla and her knuckles brush at your cheek. She pulls her hand back quickly and you notice the moisture on her hand. You hadn’t even known you’d started crying. You wipe at your face to get rid of those tears. “If it makes you feel any better, I do think your mother would be proud of who you’ve become.”

“Thanks.” It means a lot more to hear that from Carmilla than you think it should. As annoying, lazy, and mean as Carmilla was, she was here comforting you. And you’re reminded that she really is so, so sweet. When you meet her eyes again she leans just slightly into you.

“Do you have a pencil and paper nearby?”

“I—I have some in my room. Why?” Carmilla stands and holds out a hand to you. You take her hand without really thinking about it. She pulls you up and releases her hold.

“Lead the way.” You lead her into your room without asking her another question about it. Carmilla follows you and sits on your bed. You find a stack of printer paper and a pencil and hand it to her. She grabs a book from your desk and uses it at a hard surface.

You sit on your bed next to her as she starts to sketch onto the paper. She was drawing something. Of course. Where was your brain that you hadn’t figured that out?

“Can I ask you a question?” You lay down on your back, deciding not to watch her drawing process.

“Go for it.”

“Are you happy?” You ask and you stop hearing the sound of pencil on paper for a short second. It picks back up after a few seconds.

“What do you mean?” Her voice is quiet and you swallow slowly.

“I mean, like, are you happy doing what you’re doing? Are you happy that you’re about to become a super huge, important business woman?”

“Well, it’s what my entire life has been leading up to, cupcake.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.” She doesn’t answer you for what feels like hours but is only probably a couple minutes.

“I don’t know, cutie.” She licks her lips and stops drawing for a short moment. “I don’t know if I’m happy or not. I guess I’m kind of numb.” You don’t respond to that. You hear a few more pencil strokes and after a few silent seconds, she asks you, “Are you happy?”

“No.” You answer her easily and she stops drawing and looks at you. “Don’t get me wrong, I like working for you and everything. I love it at Karnstein Industries. I like Kirsch and Danny and Will. I like everyone there. But I want more from my life. I want to make a difference. I want to touch people’s lives. I can’t do that there. And I know journalism isn’t exactly a great way to start off, but I was kind of thinking I could be an independent web reporter or something. Just start off on mainstream media. I could report on things that matter to people and get the real facts.”

“I see.” Carmilla goes back to drawing. She sets her pencil down after a few minutes and holds up the drawing for you to see. You sit up as she does.

It’s you. Well, a more cartoonish version of you. But it’s you. She’s added a flower into your hair, keeping your hair pushed back on your left side and you’re smiling like you’re in mid-laughter. You look vibrant, happy and carefree. Your heart feels like it’s going to pound out of your chest. When you look at her, she’s giving you a nervous smile.

“Carm…”

“You touch a lot more people than you think you do, Laura.”

You can’t help yourself. You surge forward and kiss her.

Your body had moved on its own. And your lips are pressed almost forcefully against hers and her lips are dead beneath yours. When you realize what you’ve done and pull away from her all at once, your face is burning.

“Shit, shit, shit. I’m sorry. I was just—” Carmilla’s mouth falls open just slightly and she leans towards you. You feel your breath catch in your throat and whatever explanation you’d been about to give her dies before it’s even complete.

And then she’s leaning in. Or you’re leaning in. Maybe you’re both leaning in. But Carmilla’s hand rises and tangles in the hair on the nape of your neck and she pulls you in for a hard kiss. A fire surges in your stomach and your hands rise to grip her biceps. Your forehead bumps almost uncomfortably against her glasses when she pulls you closer, but you ignore it because you’re _kissing Carmilla_.

You don’t know how you’d gone this long knowing her without kissing her. Every missed opportunity you’ve ever had suddenly comes to mind and you can’t believe you hadn’t kissed her before. You just feel like everywhere Carmilla is touching you just _burns._ It burns _so good_ and you don’t think you’d mind if that fire burned you alive.

You fist your hands in the fabric of the hoodie she’s wearing to keep her against you. Carmilla’s lips are soft and she tastes like something expensive that you can’t afford. Then Carmilla leans into you and you lie back against your bed.

You only part with her to take a ragged breath, then she’s kissing you again. You want to tell her how good she is at this, but you don’t want to stop kissing her to talk, either. So you kiss her back and resist every urge in you to add your own voice to the sounds of her lips moving against yours. Her hand just starts to slide under your shirt, her fingers splayed against your stomach, when your father’s voice from downstairs interrupts you.

“Laura?” His calling to you startles the both of you, and you pull away from Carmilla. She releases you all at once. You both sit up and wipe at your mouths. Carmilla avoids eye contact, which you don’t pay much attention to.

“Yes?” You respond.

“Dinner’s ready whenever you two are.” You glance at Carmilla but she’s not meeting your eye.

“We’ll be down in a minute.” You yell down to him. Then you reach towards her. “Carmilla—”

“We should go eat.” She says. She stands quickly, sets the drawing down on your nightstand, and heads downstairs without you. Your insides feel like they’ve turned to lead, but you swallow and follow her downstairs.

Your father had re-warmed up the pasta from last night and he carries the dinner conversation. You push around your noodles without eating much because you feel sick. Carmilla eats two plates and your father is impressed by her appetite. But she doesn’t look at you once. He heads upstairs after a while and you corner Carmilla as she’s setting her plate into the sink.

“Why are you ignoring me?” You ask, trying not to sound as hurt as you feel.

“I’m not.” She tries to move past you and you block her path.

“Yes, you are. You keep brushing me off.”

“I’m not brushing you off.”

“Carmilla, yes you are.”

“Ugh, why are you so _pushy_?” She hisses and her glare is cold. It reminds you entirely too much of how Carmilla had been that first month you’d known her and your heart sinks.

“I’m trying to figure out how you could—” you lower your voice. “How you could kiss me like that and then just act like I don’t exist.”

“We can’t do this. You and I _both_ know that. That kiss was a mistake. I wish it hadn’t happened.” _Ouch_.  “I’m sleeping on the couch tonight, don’t argue with me about that. The bridge is opening back up tomorrow so I’ll have Kirsch come with Jacob so he can take me back in my car. Okay?”

“I—I—”

“Good.” She moves past you and you don’t make an effort to stop her this time. You don’t move until you hear her go up the stairs. You don’t know if you want to punch something, or if you want to cry. You run your fingers through your hair and take a couple deep breaths to try and calm yourself down.

You’d fucked up. It had been the best moment of your life until this point. And, clearly, your biggest mistake.

* * *

 

 **Carmilla doesn’t talk to** you the next morning. Jacob drives up to your house at eight am sharp. You and Carmilla walk out the door just after he pulls up. Carmilla won’t even look at you. And you probably shouldn’t, but you really want to talk about this with her.

You want a real explanation to why she was going to ignore how that kiss had felt. You know she’d felt that pull too. She’d had to. She couldn’t just kiss you the way she did and not have felt anything.

Kirsch steps out from the passenger seat of Jacob’s car and grabs the keys to Carmilla’s car from her. They get into her car and you turn your head from them to get in the backseat.

Jacob greets you happily when he gets into the driver’s seat. You give him a half assed reply which makes him frown. But thankfully he senses that you don’t want to talk and leaves you alone as he starts the car and pulls away from the front of your house. You sit in awkward silence the rest of the drive back to Karnstein Industries.

 


	7. Touch

_“Meeting you was fate, becoming your friend was a choice, but falling in love with you was beyond my control.”_ – Unknown Artist

* * *

 

 **Laura’s friends aren’t as** annoying as you’d assumed they’d be. You’d been apprehensive about going to visit them with her, but the only other option of sitting in her house by yourself wasn’t all too appealing. So, you end up pulling on your boots and shrugging on your coat. You don’t miss the smile that curls onto her lips. And yeah, that kind of makes braving her friends a little more worth it.

It’s an annoyingly long walk over there in the cold and you’re beyond angry at yourself for letting yourself get dragged outside the house. When you think about it, you’re sure you could have somehow convinced Laura to just stay in with you on her couch or something. You’d let yourself get swindled into leaving and you were regretting your weakness more and more with each step.

Laura buzzes up to them and you’re let inside. The woman who answers the door has her mop of curly ginger hair pulled up into a bun with one hair hanging out of place. Her voice reminds you too much of a stereotypical mom type and it makes your stomach sour.

“Hi, Laura.” The woman looks at you and you make no move to introduce yourself as confusion crosses her face. You find yourself paying attention to her body language. The slight shift in her stance and her arms crossing over her chest. It’s amusing watching her slowly start to guard herself around the stranger in her doorway. “Um—I’m sorry, I don’t think we’ve met before.”

“No, we haven’t. I’m—” You start, but you’re interrupted by a different voice from inside the apartment.

“Is that Carmilla?” You try not to be annoyed at being cut off. And you remain pleasant, for Laura’s sake, as names are exchanged. You learn the one who’d answered the door was Perry, and the person who’d cut you off was Lafontaine. You follow Laura’s example of taking off your boots and coat at the door.

Before you can glue yourself to Laura’s side, Lafontaine steps into your eyesight and leads you to the couches. You can feel Laura’s eyes on you as you follow them to sit on the couch. The apartment isn’t anything grand, but it’s comfy. It feels like a home. You can tell just by the atmosphere that the two of them are in a healthy environment. It makes you feel comfortable as soon as you sit down.

You cross your legs as Lafontaine plops down next to you. They don’t say anything for a few seconds and that makes you feel uncomfortable. It doesn’t help that you can practically feel Laura staring at you. You’re thankful when they finally say something.

“You’re shorter than I expected you to be.” You don’t know what you’d been expecting them to say as a conversation starter, but it wasn’t that. It makes you smile.

“Oh? Thank you?”

“You’re conventionally attractive though.” They quirk their head at you and you press your lips together. “I can see why Laura has a crush on you.”

“Excuse me?”

“Oh, come on. I know Laura’s shit at being subtle with her crushes. There’s no way you don’t know.” You’d had some idea, but you’d thought it had mostly been wishful thinking. You look at Laura just as you feel the pressure of her eyes leave you. When you look back at Lafontaine, they’re giving you a sad smile. “You like her, too.”

“Where would you get an idea like that?” You try to sound disaffected. Lafontaine sighs and crosses their arms over their chest.

“Okay. So let’s say you don’t like her. Regardless of that, she does have a thing for you.” You don’t respond, instead meeting their eyes so you won’t give away your discomfort. You are slightly impressed by their holding your gaze. “I don’t want her feelings to get hurt.”

You want to be mad at them for insinuating you’d ever do anything to hurt Laura’s feelings, but it was inevitable. Laura lacked subtlety, and it was grossly endearing, but you hadn’t taken it too seriously. To have one of her friends acting as if you were just stringing her along when the feelings were mutual kind of hurt.

Laura wasn’t the only one who was going to get hurt here.

“I’m not playing with your friend’s heart if that’s what you think.”

“I don’t think you are. At least not on purpose.” You sigh. This was ridiculous. Being scolded about how to handle people’s feelings. But as annoyed as you are, you can’t exactly blame Lafontaine. They were just trying to be a good friend to Laura. Laura had that effect on people. She made you want to protect her, even though she was perfectly capable of handling herself.

“Laura and I only have a little over a month left with each other. I think we can keep our hypothetical feelings to ourselves at least that long so no one gets led on.”

“Cool.” They smile and you give them a small grin back. Then they continue, “Would you believe I’m the one who convinced Laura to apply in the first place?”

“Oh, really? I hired her ironically.” You scratch at your cheek as you laugh quietly. You decidedly like Lafontaine. They were easy to talk to. “Honestly with the worst intentions in mind. I fully planned on hurting her feelings. She grew on me, though.”

“Yeah. L has that effect on people.” You admittedly stiffen slightly at ‘L.’ “It’s too bad you can’t just keep her around, yeah?”

There was no way your mother would let that happen, but Lafontaine doesn’t know that. You’re about to respond when Perry calls to the both of you from the kitchen.

“Lafontaine, Carmilla? Me and Laura are ready to eat, so if you two are done?”

* * *

 

 **You’re caught off-guard when** she kisses you. In the past few months, drawings of Laura had filled your most recent sketches. It was actually embarrassing how she’d completely taken over your thoughts. Needless to say, you were well versed in putting Laura’s face down on paper. It’s too easy to draw her. Her smile was engraved in your mind and you feel you don’t do it justice.

Regardless, you show the drawing to Laura and say one of the (arguably) most cliché things to ever leave your mouth.

“You touch a lot more people than you think you do, Laura.” It only takes one second. She goes from staring at you open mouthed, eyes shining at you like you’ve placed the stars in the sky just for her, to her mouth being on yours.

You don’t react even though every instinct in you is screaming at you to kiss her back. She pulls away and you see the look of horror cross her face before her mouth starts moving. You can’t hear what she’s saying over the sound of your heart pounding in your ears. You find yourself leaning into her, and she stops talking as your eyes drop to her mouth.

When you lean into her, she meets you in the middle and you tangle your fingers in the back of her hair as you kiss her. You feel like you are melting into her, your mind goes blank and you just focus on the feeling of her mouth on yours. God, does she taste amazing, she’s almost too sweet, much like that cocoa her father had given you yesterday.

You feel her hands fist in the hoodie you’re wearing and you lean into her until she lies down on her bed. Your first instinct is to slide your knee between her legs to press against her center, but instead you straddle her because right now you just wanted to continue to make out with her.

Her lips part with yours and you suck in a breath as she takes a more ragged, uneven one. That was you, you had that effect on her. You were making it hard for her to breathe, hard for her to press her mouth back against yours. You felt high off her. You’re just starting to inch your hand under her shirt when her father’s voice from downstairs startles you. You break from her lips with an embarrassingly loud smacking noise.

And when she calls down to answer her father, the realization of what you’d just let yourself do hit you like a train. You think you might throw up. You’d just promised her friend a few hours ago you’d keep your distance to save both your feelings. And in a moment of weakness, you’d let her kiss you. You suppose that’s your own fault for being so sweet to her.

Everything you’d done that had been sweet plays in your mind, and you feel your hands start to sweat with a feeling that can only be described as sickening guilt.

“Carmilla—” Laura starts and you cut her off with a sharp reply.

“We should go eat.” You stand quickly and leave before you can see the crushed look on her face.

You avoid eye contact with Laura while you force two plates of pasta down your throat despite the turning in your stomach. And you chat with Laura’s father. He’s oblivious to the tension between you and his daughter and you’re grateful. You don’t want to talk about this with her. You feel guilty enough.

You should have expected her to corner you and try and make you talk about your feelings. So despite the way it makes it feel like you’re tearing your own heart out of your chest, you act cold.

“I’m trying to figure out how you could—” She glances at the stairs as if her father is lurking by them, then she lowers her voice. “How you could kiss me like that and then just act like I don’t exist.”

“We can’t do this. You and I both know that.” Her face falls and your stomach twists, but you continue. You should know better. Laura was smarter than this. You were smarter than this. You both knew this thing between you, despite how the both of you might feel, couldn’t happen. “That kiss was a mistake. I wish it hadn’t happened.”

That’s a lie. It’s one of the worst you’ve ever told. Laura looks like she might cry and you hear yourself saying something about sleeping on the couch and having Kirsch drive you back to Karnstein Industries in your car. Laura starts to stutter out a reply and you cut her off with a harsh ‘good’ before you run upstairs with your tail between your legs. You pretend not to hear her taking deep calming breaths as you go.

* * *

 

 **You ride back to** Karnstein Industries with Kirsch in your car. You try not to, but you can’t help but watch Laura get sullenly into the back of the car. Jacob closes the door behind her and she’s gone from your sight. You feel like your heart is shattering in your chest for the second time in your life.

Kirsch doesn’t say a word to you as he starts the car and starts to drive once Jacob pulls away. You find yourself thinking of Ell for the first time in years, you’d had only brief passing thoughts of her that you were a bit ashamed of.

You did wonder where she was now. How she was doing. If she’d thought of you since you’d parted ways seven years ago. You wonder if she’d regretted breaking your heart. Because, God, did you regret breaking Laura’s. You tell yourself it had to be done.

With Ell, that hadn’t been your fault. You’d done nothing wrong. You were sure of it. There was no way for you to blame yourself for what had happened. This time it was your fault. Her lips had been soft and eager against yours, and kissing Laura was everything you’d imagined it would be.

Despite that, you can’t do it. You can’t be with Laura how she might want to be with you. Like you know you want to be with her. You knew it would break her in the end, and you didn’t want to cause her any more heartbreak than you already had to.

“Why’d you run away this time?” Kirsch asks, properly interrupting your rather depressing thoughts. “Why didn’t you ask me to take you? I would have taken you.”

“I know you would have, but I can’t get the freedom I want with you around.” Kirsch wilts. He slumps in his seat and pouts at the road in front of him. You feel sorry for him and guilty for probably getting him in trouble with your mother. You reach out and touch his arm. He glances at you sullenly. “It’s not personal, Kirsch. It’s just a fact.”

“I know.” He still looks like a kicked puppy, but you know nothing you say will make him feel any better. So you pull your hand back and try not to let your thoughts get the best of you.

* * *

 

 **It feels like you’ve** been driving for hours before you see the Karnstein Industries building appear in the distance and watching it get closer and closer to you feels like a bad omen. You were really growing to hate it here. Kirsch turns to pull into the employee parking lot. You watch Jacob veer off to the front steps of Karnstein Industries and turn away before you can see Jacob let Laura out of his car.

Kirsch parks and walks close behind you as you walk to the elevator and press the button up to the 30th floor. You should have been expecting it, but Maman is waiting for you in your office. She’s standing with her usual perfect posture in front of your desk.

Not now. You really don’t want to deal with this right now, but you don’t have a choice. “Mother,” you say, and she smiles.

“Carmilla, sweetheart. I’m glad you’re safe.” She moves towards you and reaches out, her knuckles graze your cheek in a touch that should feel affectionate, but something inside you wants to be repulsed by her touch and you don’t know why. She pushes your fringe (that was probably growing too long) away from your eyes and gives you a smile that’s sweet poison. You can’t bring yourself to push her away. Even if she was a little controlling and overbearing sometimes. You love her. She was the only mother you’d ever known.

“We need to have a talk.” She stands and moves towards you door. You’d forgotten Kirsch was still in with the two of you and she points at him with a single finger. “Stay.” She orders. He nods and makes no move to follow when she leads you back to the elevators. You follow her of course. There’s no choice but to. It feels like centuries pass as you wait for the elevator to reach the thirty-fifth floor and Maman leads you into her office. “Now that we have some privacy. Sit down.”

You do and she prowls around you in a way that reminds you of a predator stalking their prey. You feel insignificant under her calculated gaze. You swallow and stare at your lap, unable to look her in the eye. You feel ashamed for thinking leaving for a day would make anything better. You feel like a fool, and you know with certainty that you are trapped.

“Do you feel better after running away?” She asks and another wave of indescribable shame washes over you.

“No.” You admit. That makes Maman sigh. You look up slightly and see her lean back against the desk.

“Every time you do this, you give me the same answer. Why do you keep running when it’s clearly doing nothing for you?”

“Maybe I kind of hope that you won’t drag me back.” You say quietly, and you want to bite off your own tongue.

“Are you not happy here, Carmilla?” You look up to look at her, but you don’t lock eyes with her. Maman almost looks hurt. But you’re seen this look enough to know it’s not real. It doesn’t make you feel any less shitty. “I’ve tried to give you everything money can buy. What is it that you want?”

“Nothing.” You bite out, looking down at your lap where your nails are digging into your palm. You feel suffocated to the point you’re not even sure if you’re still breathing. You just want to breathe. You can’t breathe, you need to breathe.

You suck in a breath and steel your nerves. You ignore every urge to keep your gaze low and you look up at Maman, meeting her eyes. She smiles when you do. You know this is what she wants. Her glittering girl, her untouchable diamond.

Even though you aren’t happy here, even though you want to leave this place more than anything, you still wanted to be that diamond. You wanted to please Maman. You can’t ever forget that she’d given you everything when you’d had no one.

“There’s my girl.” Maman breathes and she strokes your hair. “In three weeks this entire company will be yours. I can be an advisor if you’d like me to be, but I’m stepping down so you can take your rightful place as chairwoman to the company.” You look down at your feet. You knew this already. This fact had been beaten into your head since you were eight. She tilts your chin up to meet her eyes. “You’re ready for this.”

“Okay.” You swallow and nod. “I’m ready for this.”

You only have a month to keep saying that and hope you’ll believe it.

* * *

 

 **Laura is sitting in** your office with Kirsch when you go back down to the thirtieth floor. She’s dressed for work now, wearing a button down blouse that’s tucked neatly into a skirt that barely reaches her knees. You realize you’re staring and clear your throat. She and Kirsch look up from where they’re playing a game of Tic Tac Toe. Laura smoothly crushes the paper and tosses it into the trash when she sees you.

“Carmilla.”

“Ms. Hollis.” You say. You’ve never seen her look so crushed than the face she makes when you revert to calling her by her last name. Since she’d started you’d called her nicknames, and now you’re putting a block between the two of you by completely acting as if she means nothing to you. Kirsch remains oblivious to the tense air between the two of you as he stands. He grins at you and claps his hands together.

“You ladies need to get escorted around today? There’s a meeting starting in ten minutes and I’m supposed to stick to you like glue today.” He rubs his still clasped hands together. “I’m going to be on you like peanut butter to the roof of a dog’s mouth until I’m off duty at five pm.”

“Thanks for making it weird, Kirsch.” He looks unaffected by your comment. “Don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere.” You don’t look at Laura once. You can’t. Because you know if you look at her, you’ll feel guilty for the way you’re treating her. Yet you almost feel just as guilty not looking at her. As if you didn’t care at all when you do, you care entirely too much. Which was why you needed to do this. Either way, you were going to lose when it came to her.

You turn from the two of them and walk down the hallway to the elevator from your office. Kirsch is right behind you and after a moment, you hear that tapping of Laura’s shoes telling you she’s following you.

You could do this. You could definitely do this.

You had no choice but to.

* * *

 

 **It’s a long morning.** You’re scheduled for three back to back meetings, which you are pretty sure were scheduled by your mother as an extra punishment. It’s impossible to avoid interacting with Laura and you swear Laura shrinks a little bit every time you call her ‘Ms. Hollis.’ Her wounded expression feels like a dagger to the heart. Every time she looks up at you, you find your eyes wandering to her lips, and you can’t help but remember how her lips had felt against yours. God, you wanted to kiss her again—

No, no, no. You were not doing this. You would not be reduced to a lovesick child because of a twenty two year old who was barely out of college. Even if she was adorable. And a little naïve. And feisty. And was an extremely good kisser—

“Carmilla?”

“What?”

“I just asked if my notes looked okay.” You realize you’ve been glaring at her notes in your hand for a few minutes too long. She’s looking at you with concern and it makes you feel sick. You shove them back into her hands.

“They’re fine.”

“Fine.” She says dejectedly and that stabbing feeling comes back.

You turn from her to Kirsch, “I have to pee.”

* * *

 

 **Kirsch, thankfully, lets you** go to the bathroom without his company after verifying there are no windows for you to escape out of. You go in and take care of your business. When you exit the stall to wash your hands, Laura is standing by the sinks. You stiffen, not expecting her to just be standing there. You hadn’t heard her come in. You shrug it off and pretend she hadn’t startled you. You don’t acknowledge her as you wash your hands.

“Are you mad at me?” She asks as you move towards the towels to wipe your hands.

Why, why, why was she doing this?

“No.” You answer calmly. “Why would I be mad at you?”

“Because I—” she lowers her voice to a whisper. “Because I kissed you.”

“No. I’m not mad you kissed me.” You hiss back. “I kissed you back, cupcake. It was mutual. And it was a mistake. We can’t do that. You know that.”

“No. I don’t.” This is the oddest argument you’ve ever had. You’re both practically

whisper-yelling at each other. Laura is glaring at you now and it’s making you mad.

“Yes, you do. In three weeks you won’t work here anymore and I’ll be too fucking busy for a relationship.”

“You don’t even like it here.”

“I have a responsibility.”

“You have a bigger responsibility to yourself. You’re allowed to pick yourself over a stupid company.”

“What would you know?” You fully turn and step towards her. Laura steps backwards and a small part of you feels bad for intimidating her, but you’re so angry. “You’ve gotten to choose where you go, what path you wanted to take. This is all I have.” You hiss and she opens her mouth and closes it, trying to decide what to say.

“You could have me,” is what she finally says, and it’s the absolute opposite of what you need or want to hear.

Your hands are on her waist, digging into her skin and you press your mouth against hers. Her hands immediately clench in the back of your shirt and she holds you against her. And, wow. You never wanted this sensation to end. You feel like every nerve in your body is coming alive and you’re kissing her almost desperately.

She gasps against your lips when you nip at her lower lip and your tongue finds hers. Your senses are filled with Laura. Her scent. Her taste. The small sound she makes when you untuck her shirt and gently drag your nails down her back. There’s nothing gentle or affectionate about the way you’re kissing her. Laura keeps up with you, which you want to give her props for, instead you kiss her like your life depends on it. You kiss her hard to take out your frustrations at this situation you’ve both found yourself in. Your hands start to wander down the back of her skirt when someone knocks on the door.

“Hey, Carmilla? You’re still in there right?” Of course it’s Kirsch. You pull away from Laura and he continues before you can answer. “It’s kind of been a while.”

“I’m fine. Kirsch, relax. Can I use the bathroom in peace?”

“Yeah, I—Sorry.” He’s just doing his job, but you’re angry at him for interrupting you. When you look at Laura, her pupils are dilated and her chest is heaving. You know you’re reflecting that desperate look on her face, and you know you’ve really fucked up. You wish you could keep pushing her away. You wish it could be easy for you to just stay away from her, but you can’t. You honestly can’t.

You run your fingers through your hair and curse. You’ve managed to fuck things up despite how much you told yourself you could do this. Laura was making you weak. She’s staring up at you like you’re going to slap her. And you realize that the way you’ve treated her today may as well have been several slaps to the face. She licks her lips slowly and sucks in a breath.

“Carmilla, I—”

“Whatever you’re going to say, don’t.” Laura closes her mouth and her eyes water. She thinks you’re going to push her away again, but you’re not going to. You won’t. You can’t now. “Hey, hey, hey. Laura.”

You cradle her face in your hands gently and lift her gaze to you. “Laura, don’t cry. I don’t know how to comfort people when they cry.”

She lets out a watery laugh and it makes a few tears spill down her cheeks. You wipe them away with your thumbs.

“Look at me, okay?” She nods and meets your eye. “I’ve been an ass today. I just—I thought if I pushed you away and acted like I didn’t care, it would be easier to let you go in a few weeks.”

“That was a stupid idea.” She tells you and you nod in agreement.

“Yeah, it was.” You admit. You search her eyes for a moment, but then you move away from her and grab a paper towel to wipe her face with. You expect her to grab it from you before you can wipe her face off, but she lets you do it for her. Which you suspect is just so you have to touch her.

You don’t mind.

“I can’t stay away from you. It’s killing me.”

“Then don’t.” She looks at you as if she’s daring you to try and push her away now. You can see it in her eyes. She knows she has you now, there’s no way for you to say no to her. You wanted her. If not emotionally, then physically. But with Kirsch on your tail, how would you make that work. It only takes a second for the idea to hit you.

“Today after I let you go, go to the mailroom and pick up my mail for me. And then meet me back at my office because Kirsch gets off at five. Okay?”

“Why would—”

“Just trust me, okay?” She looks into your eyes and hers are still filled with confusion. It washes off her face all at once when she finally gets what you’re hinting at and her mouth forms a small ‘o.’ then she nods in agreement. “Now pull yourself together. We have four more hours of business.”

* * *

 

 **The next four hours** are the longest of your life. You’re not naïve, you know exactly why Carmilla wants you to meet her at her office. The fact you’re shaking with anticipation at the prospect of meeting Carmilla in her office later to hook up with her is mind blowing. This was completely insane. You should just tell Carmilla you couldn’t do this. That you have more respect for yourself than to just have sex with Carmilla out of desperation to be with her in any way you could while you could.

But you can still feel the tingle of her lips against yours and the burn where her hands had touched you beneath your blouse. It would be easier to say no to Carmilla if she wasn’t so incredibly good with her mouth. You wanted this just as much as she did. Maybe more. You just want her hands back on you. Even if you can only enjoy it for a few more weeks.

Could the clock move any slower?

You manage to take decent notes on Carmilla’s remaining meetings. She goes back to calling you by various nicknames which you’re grateful for. Those ‘Ms. Hollis’s from earlier had stung more than they probably should have. You leave Carmilla after her last meeting when it ends at around 4:30. When she parts ways with you, she gives you a meaningful look that you can tell is asking if you’re still going to meet her. You give her a tiny nod and pretend not to notice the corner of her mouth curl into a small smile. You try to ignore your stomach doing flips in your abdomen.

She turns and walks away with Kirsch. You watch her nudge him as she says something that makes him laugh. They turn a corner and are gone from you sight. You breathe a sigh.

You want her to kiss you so badly. You want her to take you hard and fast. God, you want her to destroy you. And that thought both scares and disgusts you. Strong and independent as you were, the thought of Carmilla’s hands on you and manipulating your body in the most intimate ways left your throat dry and your head spinning.

You take the elevator down to the ground floor and find the mailroom. You walk in as casually as you can manage and ask for Carmilla’s mail. It takes a minute or two and you can feel yourself getting antsy. You shuffle on your feet, and then you’re handed a stack of mail. You ride up the elevator back up to the thirtieth floor. And, as you walk down the hallway, it feels like it’s stretching out in front of you. Getting longer and longer until it’s an endless cave.

Then you’re in front of her door. Your heart is pounding entirely too hard in your chest and you take a shaky breath before knocking on her door.

“Come in.” Has she always sounded that ludicrously seductive? You open the door and close it behind you. Carmilla’s standing by one of her bookshelves to the right of her desk, flipping through one of her books. She looks up at you after you close the door and smirks. “Cupcake.”

“Yeah,” is what leaves your mouth and you bite your tongue. Stupid.

“You came.”

“You told me to.” She blinks and lets out a short laugh as she pushes the book back into place.

“Right, but that was more of a suggestion than an order. You could have said no.” She had you there. You could have just as easily just gone home instead of meeting her here. You squeeze the mail in your hands and then meet her eye.

“You and I both know I wasn’t going to do that.” That’s when she moves towards you, and in one smooth motion she’s pulling the mail from your hands and setting it down on one of the chairs in front of her desk. Then her mouth presses against yours and your mind blanks completely.

You’re flipped around so your back is to her desk. Your thighs hit the back of her desk and Carmilla breaks from your mouth to knock her pencil holder from the desktop. You’re about to ask her why she did that when she lifts you by the backs of your thighs onto the desk. Then she’s kissing you again and your questions die before they’ve really formed in your mouth.

For a few minutes, you just kiss her. Her hands cradle your face in a way that you think should feel affectionate, but it just feels possessive. Her fingers clutch at your skin. One of her hands rises to the back of your neck and tangles in your hair to hold you against her as she kisses you with a ferocity you’ve never felt. She coaxes your mouth open with hers and her tongue slides into your mouth and grazes over the back of your teeth.

You press your tongue against hers as it slides out of your mouth, and she nips at your bottom lip. And that urge to tell her how incredible she is with her mouth rises up again. Instead you dig your nails into her biceps through the barrier of her blazer and try your hardest to keep up with the way her mouth is moving against yours.

In the back of your mind your register her hands sliding down from your head to squeeze your ass and you arch into her. Your hands move to grasp at her shoulders as you gasp into her mouth. She swallows your gasp in another bruising kiss and pulls your shirt up from where it’s tucked into your skirt.

Her hands are warm as they slide up your spine until her fingers hit your bra strap. You think she’s going to go ahead and unclasp your bra, but instead she withdraws her hand. She makes quick work unbuttoning the front of your blouse and when she speaks, her voice is laced with lust.

“Do you know how hard it was to sit in those fucking meetings and not touch you?” She finishes unbuttoning your shirt and pushes it halfway down your arms. Then she presses a kiss to your chest. “I just wanted to rip your shirt open right then and there.” You tangle your fingers in her hair and she drags her tongue up your chest to your neck and she bites into your skin. You let out a shaky breath and she kisses the spot gently.

“You were thinking about me?” You push off her blazer first, then you move your hands down to tug at the hem of her shirt. She pulls it over her head and then she kisses you again. Her chest presses against yours and she drags her nails down your back. You moan appreciatively into her mouth which causes her to smirk against your lips.

“Entirely too much.” She finally admits, then she promptly gropes at your chest over your bra and you’re arching into her again. She pulls away from your lips to kiss the tops of both your breasts. Then she pulls down both the cups of your bra and take one of your nipples into her mouth.

Carmilla sucks hard for a short moment, then her tongue flattens against the hardened bud. You sink your teeth into your bottom lip to keep from moaning too loudly. She replaces her mouth with her thumbs, rolling them under the pads of them. When she meets your eyes, you can’t bring yourself to look away from the intensity of her gaze.

“I thought I told you to stop looking at me like that.” Carmilla trails kisses between your breasts down your stomach and her tongue lingers on the mole right below your belly button. You slowly lay back against her desk, ignoring the stiffness of the wood underneath you.

“Like what?” You breathe and she palms at your breast with one hand while the other pushes your skirt up around your stomach.

“Like you always look at me.” She looks at you with the burning intensity again and then she pushes your knees apart. You think for a moment she’s going to tease you, then her mouth presses right where you need her over the barrier of your panties and you throw your head back with a gentle moan. She sucks on you through your panties and, awkward noises aside, it’s almost enough to really feel like something. But not enough to quell your growing need.

“God. Please don’t tease me right now.”

“What do you want me to do, Laura?” Your name sounds like a dare in her mouth and she nips at your clit through the now soaked barrier of your panties. You whine and try to buck your hips to get more friction, but her hand moves from your chest to your hip to hold you down.

“Please just fuck me.” She actually looks up, seemingly surprised at your language, but you don’t have the patience for her to just be looking at you. You nudge her forward with an ankle and she breathes against your center. “Come on.”

She nods and pulls your panties down your legs. She licks her lips once, then looks up at you. You can just imagine what she’s seeing now. You spread open for her, ready for her without a shred of hesitance. You want her, want her so badly it hurts. You want her in every possible way, but you know you can’t have her emotionally. So you think you could settle for having her like this.

“Try and keep it down. Yeah, cupcake?” Before you can reply to her smug comment, her tongue drags through your slick folds and you throw your head back in a silent cry of pleasure. You hear Carmilla moan, then you feel her fingers slide into you and you cry out. She stills for a moment at the sound. Then the hand that isn’t between your legs covers your mouth. You gasp into her hand as she leans over you and drills her fingers into your mercilessly.

You cry out into her hand as her fingers pump inside you over and over. Carmilla sucks on the skin just below your breast. You tangle one hand in her hair and hold her against you. The other hand grasps at her shoulder and you dig your nails into her skin. In the back of your mind, you want to be ashamed of yourself for allowing yourself to get into this situation.

You should have gone home. You shouldn’t have let yourself come into her office and have sex with her. To allow yourself to get into some false sense of having a relationship with her.

Carmilla Karnstein was going to break your heart.

And right now, you couldn’t care less.

You bite into her palm when her fingers hit a particularly sensitive spot.

“How close are you, Laura?” Her voice brings you that much closer to your orgasm and you tighten your fingers in her hair. She groans when you tug slightly on it. She kisses back down your abdomen and her lips close around your clit. You’re glad for the cover of her hand over your mouth because you’re sure your audible cries would have had someone investigating by now.

With the addition of her mouth, you feel your walls fluttering around her fingers. Then your vision blackens around the edges and your body convulses. You feel yourself clutch around her fingers and you whimper against her palm as you come. Carmilla’s tongue slows against your clit, lapping gently at it until your body goes slack and you sigh against her palm.

“Wow.” You breathe. Office sex was definitely not something you thought you’d end up trying out, but you suppose Carmilla could get you to do just about anything. She presses a kiss to the side of your neck before she presses a kiss to your lips.

You hold the back of her neck as you kiss her back. Then she sighs against your lips.

“What are you doing to me?”

“You like me.” You say, trying (and probably failing) to keep the smugness from your voice. You move to sit up. You wrap your legs around her thighs and pull her against you. Carmilla leans into you and pulls the cups of your bras down to cover your bare breasts.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She replies. You pull her into a brief kiss, before you move your lips to her jawline and nip at her skin. Without exchanging a word with her, you know you can’t leave an easily visible mark on her and that makes you groan in frustration against her.

She tilts her chin up for you and you press open mouthed kisses along the underside of her jaw. Her skin is warm and soft beneath your lips and she hums at the affectionate kisses you press against her. You have to force yourself not to read too much into this. You didn’t know what Carmilla wanted from this. You knew she felt something for you, but you know she’s not totally in touch with the feelings side of everything.

You wouldn’t confront her about this, because you didn’t want it to stop. You fear if you try to talk this out, as much as you want to, she’ll cut this off before it’s even really started. You didn’t want to risk that. You want her too badly to risk it after just experiencing one of the best orgasms of your life.

So instead you move from the top of the desk and push against her until she’s pressed against one of her bookcases, and you sink down onto your knees.

* * *

 

 **You learn a few** things about Carmilla that night. You learn that she really does like being dominated a bit. She admits to you that during her college years she usually didn’t let her multitude of flings reciprocate because she didn’t want them to have any control over her. Which you think briefly is something she should talk about, until her mouth distracts you again.

She liked to kiss each of your individual various moles during lulls in the exchanged orgasms you share. To counter your various scattering of moles and freckles, you find one particular mole between her shoulder blades. She doesn’t understand your fascination with it, but doesn’t complain when you press kisses down her spine.

You also learn that she has a thing for biting. During one instance when she’d been inside of you, you’d bitten her a little too hard as you came and she’d liked that entirely too much.

Carmilla had kissed you goodbye when you’d left her office entirely spent at 7. She tells you not to tell anyone about the two of you. For your own protection (and hers as well, you’re sure. But you weren’t a stranger to the rumors spreading around the office that were now true.) You tell her you won’t.

You manage to make yourself look presentable when you leave her office and go down to the employee changing rooms and change. You call Jacob and thankfully he’s still around to take you home. He doesn’t question why you’re leaving the office so late, but you tell him you might be staying later some days now which he just shrugs off.

You can still taste Carmilla on your tongue for hours afterwards and you wish you could tell anyone about this without it being a problem, because you really love Carmilla and— Wait.

You love her.

You’re in love with her.                                                                

There was absolutely no way this could end well for you. For either of you. But you think maybe it would be okay to have your heart inevitably broken by Carmilla Karnstein.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll just hide myself in my shame corner now like I do every time I write smut. Hahaha


	8. If I Have You

_“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.”_ – Lao Tzu

* * *

 

 **You hadn’t thought much** into how your cycles would effect this arrangement you and Laura had, and now you were kind of paying for it. Somehow, your cycles have synced up. So instead of touching her how you want to, you have Laura just sit on your desk and just kiss her. She’d locked the door behind her when you came in and kissed you once.

“You still on your period?” You ask, pressing a hard kiss against her pulse point and she nods against you.

“You?” You sigh against her skin and pull away from her. Not today, then.

“Unfortunately.” She presses her lips together and then she kisses you again. The feeling of her lips was becoming oh-so-familiar beneath your own and you pull away with a sigh. Laura looks into your eyes for a moment before she opens her mouth.

“Why don’t you wear your glasses?” You should have expected an irrelevant question.

“They’re a nuisance,” you tell her honestly. She runs a finger along the bridge of your nose. A part of you wants to move her hand away from your face, but after the past two week you’ve found that Laura is weirdly interested in touching your face. When you’re not busy fucking each other until neither of you can remember your names, she’s always tracing the contours of your face like she’s trying to imprint the image of your face in her mind forever.

In that moment you realize she might be, and the thought makes your stomach turn.

Because an entire two weeks have passed since you’d started this, there were only eight more days until your birthday. And therefore seven days until Laura’s last day in the office when you would have to part ways.

By giving into your desires, you’d let Laura completely consume your heart. You’d known the way you’d felt about her was more than lust. You’d been dumb enough to let yourself think if you could just have her until she had to go, until the party being held to celebrate the inheritance of your position, then you might be able to survive just on those memories.

Now that you have her, you couldn’t see yourself letting Laura go. You knew you really didn’t have any other choice. You’d checked just to be sure as carefully as you could without alerting your mother to your intentions. There was no way for you to keep Laura as your personal assistant mostly due to this being her only experience, she simply wasn’t qualified. Your chest felt like it was caving in when you thought about it.

You honestly don’t know if you can bare to see her go.

“I think you look really hot in glasses.” Laura’s voice snaps you from your thoughts and her hand moves from your face to your shoulder. You tilt your head at her comment.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” You drum your fingers against her thigh. Then you move your hands from where they’re resting on her legs to your top drawer. You pull your glasses from your case and put them on. When you look up at her, she’s smiling.

“How do I look then, cutie?” She’s leaning in closer to you and with her this close you can see the splatter of freckles across the bridge of her nose. And a tiny mole just above the right side of her mouth. You think you might want to imprint her face into your memory as she’s doing with yours.

“Gorgeous.” She breathes. Then she’s kissing you and Laura tastes like a cavity waiting to happen. You’re absolutely addicted to her. Her hands grip the back of your neck, and her legs wrap around your waist when you stand to kiss her harder.

* * *

 

 **When you’re around other** people, the two of you don’t find it hard to fall back into old habits. She doesn’t look you in the eye, and you’re still as snarky to her as you ever were. It’s easy to stay professional when you aren’t behind the locked door of your office. Laura does amazing notes, but your amount of meetings are heavily decreasing due to how soon you’d be taking your new position. Instead, more time was put into your birthday bash where you’d officially be “handed” your inheritance and take on your new position. You were getting gray hairs just thinking about it.

And instead of walking from meeting to meeting, you spend a lot more time in your office with Kirsch and Laura doing a whole lot of nothing.

Kirsch is still glued to your side until five pm every day. You’re sure it’s because of your mother. She’d likely told him not to take any chances because you might find yourself overwhelmed with your impending responsibilities and run away again. You don’t particularly mind Kirsch’s presence, it’s just a bit aggravating having Laura so close and not being able to touch her.

And you can’t believe there was a time when you _didn’t_ touch her. You can’t believe there are times when you _can’t_ touch her. Despite yourself, you keep thinking about your conversation with her when you’d stayed at her house. When she’d asked you whether or not you were happy where you were. You think you might be if she was with you.

You, Carmilla Karnstein, are entirely and disgustingly whipped. You sigh and both her and Kirsch’s eye lift to look at you. You frown and they both mimic the action.

“Something eating you?” Kirsch asks and you shake your head.

“I’m just tired. A bit worn out.” You shoot Laura a look and you see her open her mouth and shut it. You smirk and turn your gaze back to Kirsch.

“Worn out?”

“Mhmm. I’ve been… Working pretty hard lately.” You can just hear her suck in a breath and you lick your lips. You don’t look at her.

“You should get more sleep. Don’t you think, Laura? Sleep helps, right?”

“Uh, yeah. More sleep.” She mumbles and she looks down at her lap, slouching into her chair.

“Sit up straight, Ms. Hollis. You’ll ruin your back.” You want to laugh at the glare she shoots you, because she really does look adorable when she’s angry. You get the urge to run your fingers through her hair. It’s a darker color now that it’s been getting colder, more brunette than the blondish quality it had when you’d met her. Either way, her hair is really soft and long. You really do like pulling on it…

Laura sits up straight, chest poked out slightly. You narrow your eyes, recalling the feeling of her chest in your hands. You look back up to meet her eye and her mouth is twisted into a smug smile. And, yeah, you really needed to get rid of Kirsch for a few minutes.

“Kirsch.”

“Yo?”

“I’m feelings kind of hot. Would you mind getting me some ice cream?” You know exactly how he’ll answer, but you know he’ll give into your request soon enough.

“I’m not leaving your side. Mother’s orders.” Of course. You pout and he frowns, already starting to give in.

“Oh, come on. It’ll take you like five minutes. And I swear on my father’s grave, I won’t leave this room.” He looks between you and Laura, and then back to you.

“Why should I believe you?”

“Kirsch. I’m not going to get you in trouble again. I promise.” He meets your eyes and the tension leaves his shoulders when he sees the sincerity in your eyes. Kirsch pinches the bridge of his nose and groans, and you know you’ve got him.

“Fine. What kind of ice cream do you want?”

“Chocolate. Ms. Hollis, anything for you?” Laura glares at you for a second when she hears you call her that, then she looks at Kirsch and starts to shake her head.

“Oh no, I don’t want to be a bother or anything…”

“No, it’s cool. Anything for a hottie.” Kirsch means that as a joke. A distasteful one in your opinion (which has nothing to do with any type of jealousy. It has absolutely nothing to do with anything resembling jealousy.) Kirsch gives her a wide grin and her face sours.

“Uh, I’ll take the same, I guess.” She shifts uncomfortably in her seat. Kirsch, the oblivious beefcake, doesn’t seem to notice and nods.

“Cool. I’ll be back in like…” he looks at his watch and frowns. “Soon. Don’t move.”

“We’re not going anywhere, Kirsch.” You promise and he leaves the room, closing the door behind him. You wait for a second, listening to his footsteps getting quieter as he walks down the hallway, making sure he doesn’t come back. Once you stop hearing them, you let out a breath.

“Finally.”

“You suck.” Laura says, standing and walking towards you.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” You tell her. Laura’s standing in front of you now and her fingers dance along your shoulder. She leans into you and presses her forehead against yours.

“You never know what I’m talking about.”

“Maybe you should try making more sense.” You reach out and grab her chin in your hands. Her mouth opens as she takes a breath and you slide a finger into her mouth. Laura meets your eye and you raise an eyebrow at her daringly.

She thankfully catches your drift and her lips close around the digit and she sucks suggestively on it. You let her for a moment, basking in the quiet sound she makes in the back of her throat. Then you pull her close to you, sliding your finger from her mouth and press a hard kiss to her lips. She kisses you back and you try to pretend this can last forever. Because, God, do you want it to. You pull away from her and push her away from you, finally releasing her face.

“Go sit down before Kirsch comes back and sees you in my lap.” Her hand squeezes your thigh and she walks away from you, slumping back into her chair. She’s pouting and you’d like nothing more than to kiss her until she’s giggling and your teeth are gnashing together because she’s too busy smiling to kiss you properly.

“Sit up straight. I was serious about your back.” She groans and you don’t even try to hide your smile, and a word you aren’t quite ready to say lingers on the tip of your tongue like a curse.

* * *

 

 **You don’t know what** to expect when your mother calls you into her office the next morning. You and Laura were careful, so that possibility doesn’t cross your mind. But your mother would never call you into her office without a good reason. You stand outside her door and compose yourself. You can do this.

You knock on her door and her voice is smooth and collected when she tells you to come in. You open the door and close it softly behind you.

“Mother.” You greet.

“Carmilla.” You think she looks like a stereotypical villain standing there, looking out her floor-to-ceiling windows. You shake that thought from your head because she’s _not_ the villain of this piece. She’s the woman who’d taken care of you when you had no one. She’s the only mother you’d ever known. She deserved your obedience. She didn’t deserve the loathing that boiled in the pit of your stomach when you look at her.

It wasn’t _her_ fault you’d been born into this business and that you had a responsibility. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. It was only fate, and it was clear that fate was working against you here. But there was nothing that could be done.

Maman turns to you slowly and stands back, observing you for a moment. You’re uncomfortable under her gaze and you can feel yourself shrinking. You feel like you’re folding into yourself like you do every time Maman looks at you now. You’re not even sure why, but your toes twitch like you want to run away. She moves towards you and stands in front of you. You take a small breath and look up to meet her eyes.

“How is Laura, sweetheart?” You try not to stiffen at her name, but you feel your shoulders tense up.

“What do you mean?” You say, your hands fisted by your sides as you lick your lips.

“I’m just wondering if she’s all set for a new job since she’ll be leaving us in a little more than a week’s time. It would be a shame if she were to end up unemployed.” You’d arranged for Laura to be hired by a news station in New York, (because what use was your status if you couldn’t throw it around sometimes) but Maman didn’t need to know that.

“I suppose.” You watch her walk away from you and cross back to her desk.

“You didn’t answer my question, sweetheart. How is Laura?”

“She’s doing well.”

“All professional, I assume?” You don’t know where to look, but you bring yourself to meet her eye. What is this feeling? It takes the count of two labored heartbeats for you to realize it’s dread. You don’t know what this feeling like everything is about to go wrong came from, but it builds and builds and you spit out an answer before you look too suspicious.

“Of course.” Maman lets out a controlled breath and turns back to you. She gestures to the seat in front of her desk.

“Sit down.” You know in that moment you’ve somehow messed up. You’ve fucked up in some way. Her voice has never been that stern talking to you. You swallow the rising guilt and sit in the chair across from her desk.

_Calm down, Carmilla. It’s nothing. You’ve done nothing wrong._

“Is there a problem?” You ask. Your voice is steady despite the pounding of your heart and the sweat building up on your palms.

“You tell me.” You feel your heart skip a beat when she turns her laptop towards you. There’s a video paused on it. You recognize the bathroom. And you recognize Laura’s back turned to the camera. You recognize your own body, leaned in towards her, moving to kiss her.

For a second, you feel like your heart has stopped pumping in your chest. You feel _guilty_. And then you’re mad for feeling guilty. You have every right to kiss whomever you want. Your mother had no business sticking her nose into your personal life.

Granted, you shouldn’t have done it in the office.

That was unprofessional.

But Laura was _your_ employee, and there was nothing in her contract about public displays of affection because you’d felt it unnecessary. You’d been sure there was no way you’d end up feeling anything for one of them, and now it was working in your favor.

Then your brain reminds you that you’re under a contract yourself. That you’re _not_ the one in charge here. That you’re not supposed to touch your assistants.

You want to throw up.

Maman has yet to say anything to you, no doubt watching the limited emotion on your face. She’d taught you well. Even if you were falling apart on the inside, you knew how to control yourself outwardly. You swallow slowly and look from her computer to look her in the eye.

“If you’re going to punish me just go ahead and do it.” You bite out and Maman’s look of surprise makes your stomach flip in the worst way.

“Punish you? After the lengths I’ve gone to save you from your own foolishness? No. But I thought we should talk about this new distraction that seems to have slipped its way into the company.”

“Distraction?” You question. She ignores you, clicking over to a different video and she plays it this time. You watch as Laura enters your office. There’s no sound, but you watch as the two of you exchange words. Then you see yourself move towards her and take the mail from her hands and set it down on one of your chairs. And then you kiss her. You feel the press of her lips against yours even now and you want to throw up.

You can’t pull your eyes from the screen as you watch yourself kiss her and lift her onto your desk.

“Stop it.” You choke. You cover your face with your hands just as you see your hands are starting to unbutton her shirt. Your first thought isn’t to question why there are cameras in your office. That’s not even on your mind. You’re wondering how you could be so _stupid_ as to think you and Laura could be with each other like that without ever being caught. Without there being any consequences.

You’d been foolish.

When you look back up, the video is paused with you kissing Laura’s chest. You glance up at your mother and she’s giving you a look of expectation. Probably waiting for a sorry. Or maybe an explanation. But neither pass your lips in that second. You don’t have anything to say for yourself.

“Sweetheart.” She breathes, and you wish more than anything that you didn’t have to be here. You lick your lips and take a breath.

“What do you want me to say?” You ask.

“I don’t need you to say anything. I’ve seen enough to know what’s going on here, but the fact you thought you could keep it— _her_ a secret, darling I don’t quite understand.”

“I don’t have an answer to that.” You tell her honestly and she sighs.

“Do you really think that silly creature could love you?” You’ve lost count of how many times your world has come to a halt today. You suck in a breath and Maman shakes her head.

“She’s—She’s not some pet. She’s a person,” you defend weakly. You can’t bring yourself to even look at her. You’re ashamed of yourself because this feels a lot like losing Ell did. Like your heart was being torn from your chest.

“Do you remember what I told you when you were younger?” Your nails dig into your palm because you’re trying so hard to keep it together even though it feels like you’re falling apart. “These _girls_. They’re only trying to get on your good side for one reason. They want your money. They see your bank account and that’s _all_ they could see in you. Someone who’s not of our stature could never see you as anything but a never-ending wad of cash.”

You want to tell her she’s wrong. You _know_ that’s not Laura. You _know_ that, but you can’t bring yourself to argue. Maman sounds like she knows. She was entirely sure what she said was the truth. There was no arguing with Maman. Maman knew best. Maman knew more than you. Even if you _thought_ Laura wasn’t like that, Maman was always right.

“I know.” You tell her and she crosses back towards you. She turns your chin up so you look at her. When she releases her hold, you keep your eyes on her.

“I’m sorry it has to be this way darling, but this is why we don’t date outside of our social class. Even then, I’m certain you couldn’t trust anyone with your heart.” You nod and she continues. “Remember I told you that you have to protect yourself. In a week, I won’t be around to keep reminding you of these things.”

“I know.”

“You’ll have to fire that girl. She’s a liability now.” A part of you wants to argue with her, because even still you don’t want Laura to go. Even with your feelings in shambles. Deep in your heart, you know you want her anyway. Even if she is using you, God, do you want her. And you know that was an unhealthy thought and it scares you.

And, in that moment, your mind is made up.

“Okay.”

* * *

 

 **You return to your** office with your mind set and your feelings pushed aside. You had ridden down the elevator pushing away every good feeling that had come from just letting yourself be with Laura in the desperate way you had.

You push away the way her smile seems to light up a room. The way her laugh warmed your chest. The way teasing her made your heart leap. The taste of her lips on yours. The way her touch seemed to light you on fire. You push Laura away mentally, so you can be prepared when you push her away for good.

You open the door and see Kirsch and Laura chatting. They hush immediately when you come in and you don’t look at Laura at all.

“Kirsch, leave.” He looks like he wants to argue. But after he meets your eye and swallows visibly, he nods and steps out of the office.

“Um, call me when you’re—When you need me.” He closes the door behind him when he leaves.

“Carmilla, is something wrong?”

You wish she wouldn’t do that. You wish she wouldn’t ask you if something was wrong with so much concern in her voice. Because, if she did that, she’d make it harder for you to do what you were about to do. She’d make it even more devastating to have to break her heart.

“I’m terminating your contract.” You say. Wow that was a lot easier to say than you’d thought it would be. That is, until you make the mistake of looking at her. She’s looking at you with disbelief and what you think is a bit of betrayal. She laughs uncomfortably like you’re playing a sick joke on her. You’ve never been more thankful to your upbringing than now, or felt more betrayed by it. Because you manage to keep a straight face while hers crumples under your gaze as she realizes you really mean what you’re saying.

“Why?” She asks, and you have to look away from her.

“Because your service here is no longer necessary.” You sit down behind your desk and pretend to sift through a small pile of papers. You hear Laura take in a breath.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” You don’t want to argue with her. You wish Laura would just take your first answer instead of questioning everything you say. But you suppose she wouldn’t be Laura if she just took the easy way out.

“It means that my meetings are slowing down and I don’t need a personal assistant anymore. There’s seven days until I take on my position and I need to focus on that, and not on juggling keeping you around for no reason.”

“Oh.” She’s mad. You meet her eyes and she’s pissed. You can see the angry tears building in the corners of her eyes. “I’m sorry that I’m such a _distraction_ that I’m making it hard for you to do your job.”

“That’s not what I meant.” You groan, pinching the bridge of your nose between two fingers.

“That’s what you said, though. You wouldn’t have said that if you didn’t mean it.”

“I’m not arguing with you on this. You don’t work here anymore. Don’t make this harder than it needs to be.”

“What’s this really about, Carmilla?” You don’t answer her except with a glare because you _really_ hadn’t wanted this to turn into an argument. But you should have known better than to think Laura would just take being fired without trying to fight for it. That’s just the kind of person she was. “Is there—Is there someone else?”

Her voice is so timid and it scares you that she might sincerely care about you. She couldn’t. She shouldn’t.

“This isn’t about us.” You tell her and she shakes her head.

“I don’t believe you.”

“I don’t need you to believe me.” You wipe your palms on your thighs as discretely as you can manage. “You can pick up your things from your locker and Jacob will drive you home. It was nice working with you and—”

“No. I’m not going to let you just fire me and pretend you don’t feel anything for me.”

“Laura—”

“Stop. You’re not allowed to say my name like that, either. Tell me you never cared about me, not once. That you don’t feel anything for me now, and I’ll leave. I’ll walk out of your life forever.” She sets her jaw and clenches her hands in fists by her side.

You don’t want to. You want to tell her that you care about her. That you would do anything to keep her by your side as long as she’d have you. But you know that’s not possible. So you swallow the last of your feelings, and tell the biggest lie to ever leave your mouth.

“I don’t care about you. I never did.” You’re met with silence.

Then she laughs. It’s bitter and dry and nothing how Laura’s laugh should sound. And _you_ had done that. You feel guilty. You feel _so_ guilty. But it was better this way. It was better for both of you.

“I didn’t want to hurt your feelings,” you continue. “But we can’t keep this up anymore. This needs to end.”

“You’re lying.” You see yourself at eighteen reflected in Laura’s eyes. That look of betrayal as someone who you had thought loved you, tore your heart apart and you bite the inside of your cheek.

“I’m not.” You hear yourself say. To her credit, she doesn’t cry. She takes a deep breath before she answers you.

“Fine.” She turns and leaves your office, slamming the door behind her. You think a part of you might want to chase after her and tell her everything you said was a lie. But you don’t know what your next step would be. So instead you slouch into your chair and let out a shaky breath.

“Fine.”

* * *

 

 **The next couple days** feel like a dream. Or a nightmare. Kirsch doesn’t ask about Laura, which you’re grateful for. You’re not sure if you could give him an answer without yelling at him, and he doesn’t deserve that.

It felt like there was a gap in your life since Laura had left. It had only been two days, but it felt like months. You’re more easily aggravated and you take it out on anyone who crosses your path in an effort to dissipate the emptiness in the pit of your stomach. But nothing has felt the same.

Will had come back from Germany for your party and he’d avoided you the previous day, probably sensing your bad mood. So you’re surprised when he knocks on your door and Kirsch lets him in.

“Hey, kitty.” He smirks and leans against one of your chairs.

“This kitty isn’t afraid to punch you in the mouth.” You turn back to your computer and look back at the emails filling your mailbox with different interview requests and well as some company business that was going to be more relevant in a few days. You see Will nod to Kirsch out of the corner of your eye and Kirsch leaves.

“Why don’t you tell your little brother what’s wrong?” He plops down into one of your chairs and scoots up so he’s right in front of your desk, resting his elbows on the wood.

“Don’t you have _anywhere_ to be but here?”

“Nope. Schedules all clear. Kirsch told me—”

“Kirsch needs to mind his own business.”

“He’s just concerned about you. He said your assistant disappeared and since she’s been gone you’ve been bitching at everyone.”

“That’s not true,” you say. You’re trying to ignore him and go through your emails but you can’t focus with him poking all the buttons you’ve been pretending aren’t there.

“You’re not even convincing yourself with that one, Carmilla. Come on. If you can’t tell me, who can you tell?” You almost tell him to fuck off. But you decide you’ve got nothing else to lose.

“Mother caught me being… Intimate with her.” It feels weird admitting this out loud to him, but Will sits back and realization spreads onto his face.

“How’d that happen?”

“Apparently, there are cameras in here.”

“What the fuck?” He laughs and you can’t help but smile. “You don’t think that’s weird?”

“I think I should have expected that. You and I both know Mother has eyes everywhere.” Will shrugs and drums his fingers against the edge of your desk.

“Well, what are you going to do about it?”

“What do you mean ‘What am I going to do about it?’ I fired La—her and I’m going to become head of this company in five days. What else is there _to_ do?”

“Carmilla, you and I both know you hate it here.” You open your mouth to argue with him and he shakes his head. “Come on. Don’t argue with me on this. I know you.”

“What would you have me do? Quit? That would just put all the pressure on you. You’re next in line after me.” Will shakes his head and looks down at his feet.

“I don’t need you to protect me, Carmilla. This isn’t the ideal lifestyle for me either, but let me do this one thing for you. I can even send you money so you can pay for some fancy art school, I know you like drawing. I can deal with this, just—”

“Will, no. I’m not going to let you get sucked into this anymore than you already are.” He sets his jaw, looking defeated.

“Fine. But, here.” He pulls a folder from his jacket and throws it down on your desk. “Danny asked me to give this to you in case you needed a final push.” You eye the folder curiously, then look back at Will. He gives you a sad smile and stands. “We all just want you to be happy.”

Scrawled across the front of the folder in big letters is “ _CARMILLA YOU NEED TO SEE THIS.”_ Before you can ask Will more about it, he waves you goodbye and leaves. You’re hesitant to open the folder because you’re unsure what you’re going to see, but after letting your hand rest on the folder for a long moment, you open it.

There are payment spreadsheets spanning over the last month on the first sheet of paper, and you flip through them until you see the last one that’s from December in what would be seven years next month. You feel like your heartbeat is slowing down when you see that they payments for around a hundred thousand a month to Justin Hall.

You would always recognize the name of Ell’s father.

* * *

 

 **You’re at the elevator** before you’ve really thought about what you’re going to do. Before you’ve decided what you’re going to say. You can’t breathe. You’re being impulsive. Nothing good happened when you were impulsive, but you feel so lied to and used.

You’re standing in front of Maman’s office and you walk in without knocking. Thankfully, she’s there alone.

“Carmilla? You know you shouldn’t come up without me asking for you, or at least knocking.”

“What is this?” You hold up the folder and she give you a disinterested look. Then she looks again at the folder in your hand and narrows her eyes.

“What is that?” You move to her desk and drop it. She eyes you, then flips the folder open and her eyes widen just slightly. “Where did you get this?”

“What did you do?”

“All I did was get rid of a distraction.” She doesn’t look the least bit resentful and anger boils within you.

“A distraction? I loved her. And I thought she—But, that was all _you_.”

“Dear—”

“I can’t believe you did that.” You’re talking more to yourself than her at this point. You’d let yourself think that her controlling everything you do was okay. You’d told yourself again and again that you owed her. “You—You’ve been controlling me since you became my guardian. Molding me and shaping me.”

“Carmilla, in time you’ll understand everything I’ve done is for the best.”

“Do you think I’ll ever understand why you’ve been paying off Ell’s father to keep her away from me? That’s what you did, right?” Maman sighs and you feel like you’re being crushed under her presence. “I can’t be here anymore.”

“That’s fine. We can have Kirsch drive you home tonight and—”

“No, I can’t be _here_. I have to leave. I need to leave. I can’t be a part of this environment anymore.”

“What exactly do you plan on doing?”

“I want to relinquish my rights to any part of this company.” It’s an impulse and as soon as the words leave your mouth, you feel a weight lift from your shoulders. “I—I can’t be the head of this company. You still have Will. Though if he’s smart, he’ll get out too.”

“You don’t mean that, darling. Just go home and get some sleep, and you’ll see you’re just overreacting.”

“No. I have to go. What papers do I need to sign? I’ll do whatever I need to.”

“You realize you won’t have a claim to a cent from this company. I don’t have to give you a thing. You won’t have _anything_.”

“I don’t want your money. And I do have one thing. I have Laura. Or _had_. Until I broke her heart, because I thought I was doing us both a favor. But I’ll win her back.”

“You’re making a mistake.”

“The only mistake I’ve made was ignoring how I felt for what I thought was the more logical option.” She shrugs, smiling despite yourself. “I’m not going to follow logic this time. I have to go. And, you know, maybe you’re right. Maybe this is a mistake, but it’s mine to make.”

“Fine.” She bites out. You want to breathe a sigh of relief. “I’ll get the papers."

* * *

 

 **It doesn’t take long** for you to sign all the papers relinquishing your rights to any part of the company. You don’t have a plan for what you’re going to do next, and that scares you a bit. But you figure being impulsive might not be so harmful. On your way back to your office, you bump into Danny and you stop her.

“Hey, Xena.” She groans and turns to you.

“Carmilla.” She looks sheepish and you have to grin slightly.

“I wanted to thank you.”

“Thank me?” The shock on her face is almost worth having to swallow your pride and do this.

“Yeah. I wanted to thank you for finding the papers on Ell’s dad. I had no idea she’s been paying him off.”

“Oh, of course. It’s no problem. We knew something was up when SJ saw Laura pack up her things and leave. And you’ve been bitchier than usual from the gossip.”

“You people gossip about me?”

“You’re _Carmilla Karnstein._ Of course we gossip about you.”

“Well, thanks anyway. I’m out of here.”

“You’re leaving?”

“Yep.”

“It’s going to be weird not seeing you yelling at people.” Danny admits and you get the urge to give her a hug, but that urge also brings up a duel urge to puke on her cardigan. So you push that aside.

“I’m sure you’ll all be fine.” You give her a mock salute that she returns, then you walk past her to your office.

“Wait.” You turn and Danny takes a breath. “You’re going after Laura, yeah?”

“So what if I am?” She smiles.

“Who would have known Carmilla Karnstein was such a romantic?” You flip her off before you march back to your office. Kirsch is slouching in one of your chairs and he stands up when you push open your door.

“Oh, hey.”

“Kirsch, how do you feel about Germany?” He scratches the back of his head.

“Well, my German’s kinda rough but—Wait, why?”

“You work for Will now. I quit.”

“Can you even quit?”

“Apparently I can, because I did.” Kirsch pulls you into a hug before you can protest. You pat his back. “There, there, big guy. I’m kind of choking.”

“Sorry, it’s just... Wow. You got out.”

“Yeah, take care of Will for me?”

“Of course. Give me a call every now and then. A hottie like you shouldn’t be afraid to stay in contact with me.” He grins and you roll your eyes.

“Just because I’m not your boss anymore, doesn’t mean you can hit on me.” You poke his chest and he laughs.

“Can’t blame me for trying, right?”

“Would you mind finding Will for me? I have to say goodbye to him before I go.”

“Yeah, of course, dude.” You roll your eyes because it only took seconds for Kirsch to drop formalities with you. But he leaves. You look around your office, unsure what to take because you honestly don’t know what you’re going to need. You never thought you’d be in this situation.

You grab your bag and stuff your wallet into it, along with your glasses case and the sketchbook in your bottom drawer. You want to curse because you’re going to have to leave with just the clothes on your back. You essentially had nothing.

Even though you don’t think you deserve it, you really hope Laura would give you another chance.

Will enters without knocking and opens his arms for you. You immediately move from behind your desk and wrap your arms around him, burying your nose into his shoulder. You realize you’re crying when you feel moisture from his shirt against your cheek.

“Thank you.” You breathe and he shakes his head.

“No need to thank me. I have to take _your_ stinking job now.” You pull away from him and wipe your face with your hands.

“At least you’ll be financially stable.”

“There are some things more important than money.” He shrugs. “I’d leave in a heartbeat if I found someone as special to me as Laura is to you.”

“Shut up, you big sap.”

* * *

 

 **As you step out** of the Karnstein Industries building and look up at the obnoxiously placed K on the front of the building, you feel like you’re finally being stripped of the life you’d never asked for. You feel liberated. You turn your back and smile at Jacob who has the door opened for you. You climb inside and he closes the door.

“Thank you for doing me this favor.” You tell him, once he’s settled into the driver’s seat.

“Of course, Ms. Hollis’s house, correct?”

“Yes, sir.”

* * *

 

 **After two days, you** thought you’d be all cried out. Your father had tried to ask you what had happened, but you’d been a soppy mess. So he’d decided to give you space until you were ready to talk. And, honestly, drowning your sorrows in ice cream had been a good substitute.

You should have known getting your heart stomped on would hurt this badly.

You wish you could hate Carmilla for tossing you aside like you meant nothing to her, but you can’t. You don’t. You’re still completely and totally in love with her. It makes you sick because she’d essentially dumped you.

You spoon another scoop of ice cream into your mouth.

You hear a knock on the door, but you don’t move from the spot you’ve glued yourself to on the couch. Your father comes out from the kitchen and gives you a sad smile. He pats your shoulder before moving to answer the door. You hear it creak open.

“Oh, Carmilla?” He says and you stiffen. No. She wasn’t here. That wasn’t possible.

“Hey, Mr. Hollis. Is—Uh, is Laura home?” That was definitely Carmilla’s voice, but—

“She is, but I don’t think now is—”

“Wait. I’ll talk to her.” You speak up, setting your ice cream down and standing. You wish you looked better. You know your eyes are red rimmed and puffy from crying. You hadn’t showered since yesterday morning, when you’d cried more than actually cleaned yourself, and you were really drowning in some of your father’s old clothes. Your father’s eyebrows scrunch together, but he shrugs.

“Oh, alright then. Well, I’ll be in the kitchen if you two need anything.” You give him a nod, then he leaves the two of you alone.

“You look terrible.” Is the first thing she says. You laugh bitterly.

“Thanks a lot. If you just came here to insult me—”

“Wait, that’s not what—Okay, I’m not so great with the feelings thing but—” You narrow your eyes at her because was this _really_ Carmilla? The Carmilla you knew didn’t stutter this much. “Laura, I—I want to explain myself.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?” You nod and she takes a breath. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I lied to you. I’m sorry that I fired you without a real explanation. And I’m sorry, I can’t even give you a decent apology for everything. But I— I gave it all up. I gave up everything just for a chance to make this thing between us work. Because I really want to be with you.” She takes a breath, trying to get her words together. “This is me asking in the shittiest way possible for you to give me another chance.”

You’re speechless for a moment because out of everything you thought she might say, that wasn’t it. You lick your lips, trying to find something to say to her because she looks so desperate. She’s looking at you like you might shut her out like she did to you, but you could never do that to her. You take a small step closer to her.

“Carmilla, I don’t know what to say.” Carmilla looks down, crushed for a moment and you shake your head. “Carm, it’s not a no. I want to be with you too. It’s just…  I mean, I know you weren’t just doing it for me, but I—”

“Laura.” She shakes her head at you and she’s smiling as she steps towards you and reaches out for you. Her hands find your elbows and you fist yours in her shirt and pull yourself a little closer to her. “Don’t be an idiot. Of course I did it for you. But I did it for me, too. I did it for the both of us.”

And you’re gravitating towards each other. Her nose brushes against yours and your eyes drift closed. You’re both moving so agonizingly slow and you let out a breath as hers warms your upper lip. You think momentarily that your dad could walk back in at any moment. Then Carmilla’s lips brush just barely against yours and the thought is gone.

Carmilla kisses you hesitantly at first. It’s so brief and soft, you’re not even sure it happened. You pull her towards you and kiss her again. Your kiss is firm but still too brief. Then her hand rises to the back of your neck and she holds you against her as she kisses you. And you kiss her back.

This kiss feels different from every other kiss you’ve shared. Those kisses felt rushed compared to this one. Those kisses had been lust fueled. Those kisses were stolen in secret; shared in a mutual desperation to feel one another.

This kiss was different. It was more tender than any other. Carmilla had left everything behind for you. Just for a _chance_ for the two of you to find happiness with each other. This kiss says a lot of things. It says I’m sorry. It says I forgive you. It says I’ll never leave you.

This kiss. This kiss says—

“I love you.” It’s whispered so quietly against your lips that if you hadn’t been this close to her, you’re sure you wouldn’t have heard it at all. Then she kisses you again forcefully. “God, I love you so much.”

You pull away from her, momentarily speechless. Then you press your lips against hers despite the smile threatening to ruin the possibility of any more proper kisses happening. Her hands slide down your arms and around your waist. And she holds you against her as your hands slide up her chest to cross behind her neck.

You pull away from the kiss and bury your face in her neck, both of you just blissfully holding each other and you say, “I love you too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The End!.. For now.


End file.
